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POETRY AND PROSE 



OF 



MARIE RADCLIFFE BUTLER 



EDITED BY 

y 

THOMAS D. BUTLER 







CINCINNATI 
STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY 



?^ 






V 

A- 



%* 



Copyright, 1884, 

BY 

Thomas D. Butler. 



Prs. f annte f . Cljnsfopljeiv 

THE DEVOTED FRIEND AND LIFELONG COMPANION 
OF THE AUTHOR, 

THIS WORK 

IS DUTIFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART I.— POETRY. 



The Christian Standard on the 


Field of Armageddon 


I 


The Falling Leaf 


4 


A Baby's Face 


S 


Spirit Musings 


6 


Spirit Changes 


8 


Earth-Anchors 


lO 


A Mother's Anniversary- 


II 


Broken Dreams 


12 


" Broken Wings " 


14 


Muscle and Brain 


i6 


The Royal Road of Duty 


i8 


The Poet of the Hearth 


20 


My Half-way House to Heaven 


23 


Snow 


26 


Snow ..... 


28 


The Ships of Doom . 


30 


Camp Nelson 


31 


Lines on the Death of a Friend 


32 


Thorns ..... 


33 


Life's Timepiece 


34 


An Hour of Sabbath 


36 


Midnight .... 


37 


Midnight Angels 


39 


Out of Tune .... 


40 


Murdered Days 


41 


The Ocean Cable 


42 


" War on the Continent " 


44 


The Death Mystery 


46 


The Minister's Problem . 


48 


Immanuel . . . . 


52 


Iconoclasm .... 


54 


The Ships of Life 


55 


Three Pictures of Faith 


57 


"InMemoriam" 


59 


At the Aid Society . 


59 


Partnership .... 


60 



Sun 



of a Theologi- 



Prize Poem 



An Acre of Graves 

Desolation 

Charles Dickens 

O Bright and Silent : 

The Bridge 

Lost 

Lines on the Death < 

cal Student 
Love's Crosses 
My Prayer 
The Little Sower's 
Little Quarrels 
Our Children 
Grandfather 
Grandmother . 
Our Baby 
Robed in White 
Song of the Christmas Eve . 
The Evening Story 
A Letter to the Children 
Where Jesus is . . . 
My Letter from the King 
Our Nation's Destiny 
The Angels .... 
Lines, with a Bible Presented 
My Life and I 
My Theory 



My Creed 

Nearer God 

After a While 

Dr. L. L. Pinkerton 

My Vesper Song 

Women — Mission Workers 

My Sunset Window 

A Prayer 

Across the Sea 

Reticence 



100 
100 
102 
103 
los 
106 
108 
109 
III 

"3 
114 
116 
118 



VI 



Contents. 



John the Baptist .... 119 

The Greatest Prophet . . . 120 
The Second Miracle . . . 121 
God ....... 121 

A Response ..... 124 

The Cross of Christ . . . 127 
Pentecostal Voices . . . 129 

As our Day shall our Strength be 130 
Christmas Poems . . . 131 

The Angels' Song . . . 132 

The Wise Men's Song of Worship 132 
Fragments ..... 133 

A Face in a Crowd . . . 134 

The Only Daughter . . . 136 
Going on a Journey . . . 137 
When shall I see Thee, Mother 

Mine? 138 

Satisfaction ..... 140 
A Reverie ..... 140 

Madaline ..... 141 

One Day with God . . . 142 

Something More .... 143 
Guessing at the Unknown . . 144 
The Iron Horse .... 146 

At Rest 146 

From Sun to Sun .... 147 
My Friend and Christ's . . 148 



What of the Day? . 

Life's Service . 

Rivers of Song 

My Ideal . 

A Voice in the Storm 

Lines to my Husband on the At- 
lantic — Outward Bound . 

Lines to M. C. Ramsey, with a 
Bible, presented by his Choir 

Change ...... 

Is it Best? 

A Reply 

Ye have not Lived in Vain . 

Lines to my Mother 

Lines to a Stranger, whose Writ- 
ings I had Read 

A Wish, for a Friend, who re- 
quested it . 

Lines to my Sister .... 

Lines written in a Friend's Album 

Loneliness ..... 

A Dream of the Past 

My Secret ..... 

A Prayer 

The Half-way House 

Thy Will be Done .... 

Waves of Galilee .... 



149 
149 
152 
153 
15s 



170 
171 
172 
173 
174 



PART II.— PROSE. 



The Fight of Patience . 


■ 17s 


The Bible Stage of Christian 


ty . 179 


These Temples 


. 183 


A Sermon from the Pew 


. i8s 


The Lever of Archimedes 


. 191 


Pilate's Wash-basin 


■ 197 


The Leaven of the Pharisees 


. 201 


The Wonderful Will 


. 204 


Latest from Paris . 


. 20S 


A Social Rampage . 


. 213 


Pens and Patience . 


. 217 


Life-Work ; or, Raised frorr 


1 the 


Depths 


. 223 



Deacons as Evangelists . 
Ordination 
Little by Little 
"Put out the Light" 
Christmas 

What our Souls tell us . 
" The Realm of Change" 
Keeping Time . 
The Broken Evergreen . 
Rays from an Old Memory 
Under the Dome 
A Page of History and a Line of 
Revelation .... 



253 
270 
280 
283 



313 
31S 
326 
334 



INTRODUCTION. 

Had the wishes of friends, near and far, expressed by every style 
of communication, from time to time, been acceded to, most of these 
productions, which have appeared in leading religious and secular 
journals, would have appeared in book form m.any years ago. 

The insuperable hindrance to earlier publication was interposed 
by the author herself; and this she did persistently, as she would 
declare that she had not yet produced anything worthy of such honor, 
and moreover, she always expected to write a longer poem to lead 
all the others. That longer poem was never written. 

Only a few hours before she winged her way to the heights of 
glory, of v/hich even the poets only dream, she committed these 
pieces into my hands for preparation and publication. She calmly 
realized that the volume of her book was at last finished, and sanc- 
tioned its going forth to work on for the pleasure and profit of 
the people. I therefore send it forth as her message still speaking 
in our ears, the things which took the forms of beauty, and sang in 
musical strains first in her own soul, hoping that the full measure 
and perfectly rounded sum of the many-sided good she desired 
to accomplish may be successfully wrought thereby, and that these 
eloquent pages may speak her thoughts in her own words, 
" Though her lips are now frozen and dumb." 

This gifted, saintly, and now glorified woman, who for nearly 
twenty-three years was the inestiiuable helpmate of Thomas D. 
Butler, was born at Jordan, Onondaga Co., N. Y., Feb. 15, 1839. 
About two years after this event, her parents removed to Cuyahoga 



viii Introduction. 



Falls, Summit Co., 0., where, in her thirteenth year, she wrote the 
earliest of her preserved poems, entitled "The Falling Leaf," pub- 
lished in its original form many years afterwards, in the Christian 
Stmidard. In 1853, her parents removed to Wheeling, Va., where 
her father, not long after, died during an epidemic of cholera. Her 
mother now opened a school for instruction in music, drawing and 
embroidery, having select classes in other towns, in which Marie 
became an efficient assistant. While living in Wheeling, she gained 
the first prize awarded at the county fair for a series of pencil 
sketches, which her family still hold as treasures. In 18575 Mrs. 
Radcliffe accepted the position of governess in a private boarding- 
school at Brownsboro, Oldham Co., Ky., with Marie as assistant. 
Here the mother was married to Deacon John S. Christopher, of 
Louisville, Ky., and soon afterwards Marie entered the Female 
High School of that city to finish her education. Although always 
hampered and enfeebled by a violent and exhausting cough, and 
faithful beyond limit in her department of domestic duty, she pei"- 
formed the exceptional and unparalleled task of crowding the four 
years' course into two years, and graduated with an unusually bril- 
liant class. George D. Prentice, the famous editor of the Louisville 
Journal, who had written most eulogistically of her poetical contri- 
butions to his paper, wrote the following concerning her graduating 
essay : "It would be invidious to speak separately of the essays of 
the members of the graduating class, but we can not refrain from 
mentioning that upon ' Disunion,' read by Miss Rachel Gibbons, 
and the remarkable dissertation upon 'Woman and Dreams,' by 
Miss Marie Radcliffe. The former displayed great wit and strong 
intellect ; the latter, a maturity of thought very rare in young girls. 
The strong-mindedness was, indeed, an objectionable feature, eman- 



Introduction. ix 



ating from so lovely a girl, whose business in life is to brighten a 
fireside, and not to discuss woman's rights." (This was twenty-four 
years ago.) 

In August 22, 1861, she became the consort of Thomas D. Butler, 
then and for fourteen years afterwards a resident of Louisville. 
During her residence in this city, her six children were born, and 
nearly all her literary work was done. During all her subsequent 
journeyings, Louisville was home, sweet home ; and she resis there 
in God's acre. 

None but her family knew the vast labor, the ever-present suffer- 
ing, and the all-sustaining and all-conquering heroism that made up 
her daily life. As she said once, and only once, "I have never 
drawn a well breath in all my life." 

Although measurably keeping up her habit of reading only the 
best books, and devoutly exercising her gifts as a writer, she was a 
most diligent, careful and painstaking mother, as the fruits of her 
loving heart and busy, sicillful fingers will testify long after her latest 
boy is a man, or with her in glory. 

At the request of the editor of the Christian Standard, she occu- 
pied the first column of the first page of the first number with a 
long poem, thus introducing the first copy to its friends. For seve- 
ral years afterwards she wrote almost exclusively for the pages of 
the Standard, and many of her pieces in prose and poetry were 
copied into leading religious and secular journals of this and other 
countries. A number of her poems were published in the New 
York Independent. 

That paper, in announcing her death, said: "The Louisville 
Commercial announces the death of Mrs. Marie Radcliffe Butler, 
wife of Rev. T. D. Butler. Mrs. Butler will be recalled by the 



X Introduction. 



older readers and subscribers of the Independent as a former contrib- 
utor to our columns. She wrote verses which were greatly admired 
at the time of their appearance." 

Other papers sought her services as a contributor. She wrote 
some prize poems about this time, in all of which, I think, she was 
distinctly successful. For some months about the year 1871, she 
performed editorial service on the Standard during the abseyce of 
its editor at various places filling engagements. In this work, which 
she very much enjoyed, she wrote many editorial articles of great 
beauty of diction, and of striking originality of thought. While 
in Cincinnati, she produced a singularly beautiful and powerful 
article, entitled "A Page of History and a Line of Revelation," 
for the pages of the Christian Quarterly. This was the only 
article, I believe, ever contributed by a woman to that scholarly 
review. 

In 1872, Bosworth, Chase & Hall, of Cincinnati, published her 
two books — "Riverside" and "Grandma's Patience" — two serials 
which had appeared in the Standard. She also edited two small 
books written by her mother, Mrs. Fannie H. Christopher, entitled 
"Duke Christopher" and " Bartholet Milon." 

Intensely and unceasingly devoted to gospel truth, she was in no 
sense or degree a sectarian. She loved her church, and labored for 
its prosperity and honor with untiring zeal and fidelity. 

The project of organizing the C. W. B. M. had peculiar interest 
for her. She longed and prayed for it years before its formation. 
When finally it came to be a fact in the history of our missionary 
undertakings, she was grievously disappointed that she was too sick 
to attend the first annual meeting, in connection with the General 
Convention held at Cincinnati, October 20, 1874. She was then 



Introduction. xi 



lying, as we feared, near the gate of death. But in this, as in every- 
thing else, she did what she could. Full of weakness and pain, 
while her poor body was pillowed in her bed, her great, loving soul 
sent its own message in its own way, in a poem of twenty-two 
stanzas, to be read as her offering to the Convention of Christian 
Women. This poem v/as read by Miss Ida Hood, of Cincinnati. 

From this time a great change came over her life and work. 
Nursed and tended with the utmost care and skill, she was preserved 
through the ensuing winter and spring, when, in charge of her de- 
voted mother and a nurse, she went with her children to the home 
of bishop B. U. Watkins, Maine Prairie, Minn., on the quiet shore 
of whose "Silver Lake" her only brother had been resting for 
many months. From her far northern retreat she sent her eloquent 
and immortal lines to the memory of Dr. L. L. Pinkerton, which, 
in lieu of a worthy poet to sing to her memory, we will apply to her 
as equally appropriate and fitting. 

Her disease being arrested, she felt that as God had given her 
another, although a frail, lease of life, she would devote herself par- 
ticularly to pursuits of the highest and deepest practical importance. 
She was fortunate in having for her mother a woman of unusual 
culture, piety and practical philanthropy. She led her daughter 
into all such fields, often, as I know, requiring the highest moral 
courage and the deepest self-sacrifice, and was more than content 
afterwards to follow the larger leadership of her more gifted child. 
As during the dark and bitter years of the war from 1861 to 1865, 
both mother and daughter were conspicuous for their loyalty to the 
Government, for their laborious work in behalf of the sick soldiers 
— converting their home into a hospital for many months — and una- 
bated service in hospital and camp until peace came, so the temper- 



xii Introduction. 



ance cause took hold of them, and the soul of our departed one was 
filled with zeal and her lips with burning words. 

Making her home in Detroit in 1876, she at once associated her- 
self with the W. C. T. U., and notwithstanding her physical energy 
had lost much of its vitality, she was an indefatigable, fearless and 
efficient worker in the departments specially assigned her — with 
direct reference to her preeminent intellectual capabilities. Her 
name and fame in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other States, 
rest almost all together upon her public work as a lecturer in the 
temperance field and a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
Many persons who heard her in these gospel temperance meetings 
have said that they did not know there was so much temperance in 
the Bible until they heard her speak. It was a joy to her to unite 
the various denominations in practical, as they were separated in 
theoretical, Christianity, as she often did in union gospel temperance 
meetings. 

The beginnings of her twofold public work were, in our judg- 
ment, strikingly providential. She had lived to be thirty-seven 
years of age, in a quiet and modest, but withal a useful Christian 
life, with the daily satisfaction of doing the duty of the hour. And 
for this she always had the courage of a true purpose. While she 
never cherished a prejudice or a resentment, her eye was always 
single and clear and steadfast. To her the supreme question was. Is 
it right ? This settled, while she would as a child sit at the feet of 
others, if need be, to learn methods, she never held her convictions 
and her duty subject for a moment to any one. It was hers to do 
her duty, and as she used to say, she "had not the time or strength 
or disposition to discuss the question with objectors and critics." Her 
path lay above them. Her public work in temperance was utterly 



Introduction. xiii 



unsought by her. The Sunday afternoon meeting of the W. C. T. 
U. in Detroit was an immense popular assembly all the year round. 
The preachers of the city discoursed there, as I did on several occa- 
sions. In 1877, Francis Murphy was announced to address the 
meeting, but the President of the Union, Mrs. B. B. Hudson, who 
was also President of the State organization, fearing that for some 
reason he might disappoint them, applied to Mrs. Butler, and urged 
her to prepare herself to speak on that uncertain occasion. The 
time came, and she had to fill the vacancy under such trying condi- 
tions. This was the first time in her life that she stood before 
an audience for such a work. Her earnestness and the gravity of 
her message more than compensated, as inspiration, for the un- 
familiarity of her task and the shrinking sense of her inability for 
the work. But with her soul on fire, she spoke with quiet but in- 
tense fluency, and with consummate effectiveness, for the space of 
an hour and more. A city paper thus noticed the address : 

"The gospel temperance meeting on Sunday afternoon was 
addressed by Mrs. T. D. Butler, of this city. Her effort is com- 
mended as one of the most eloquent, sympathetic and practical that 
the Union has had the pleasure of listening to." 

Some time afterwards she accompanied me to an annual meeting 
in the county north of Grand Rapids, where brethren and sisters 
spoke to me with regard to asking her to preach at the meetings. As 
I had to go, after the first day of meeting, to fill an engagement at 
Charlotte, I told them that they had my consent for her to preach, 
provided she did not speak in the open air meetings. When we met 
again at home the next week, I learned that she had preached four 
successive evenings in the public hall. At first she refused, for the 
work was strange and solemn, and she knew she would be subjected 



xiv Introduction. 



to misunderstandings and unkind criticisms, and finally consented 
to preach only from night to night, as her work might be vindi- 
cated by the good she was able to do. Daring these evenings, Bro. 
Grice, the pastor, received, I think, fifteen confessions of persons 
directly influenced by her words. Thus into the temperance and 
gospel work she was constrained by irresistible moral forces, simply 
for the good she might do for God and man. She knew she was 
right, and did it, as many will testify to her honor in time and 
eternity. They will tell the good she has done. 

About this time (1877-8) she edited for one year a weekly tem- 
perance paper in Detroit, called " Truth for the People." 

Her fame as a lecturer and preacher traveled fast and far. At 
Bailey, north of Grand Rapids, there never was a church of any 
kind. There was preaching by two or three preachers in the school- 
house, and the foundation was in course of preparation for a United 
Brethren house of worship. As missionary and evangelist of the 
third district of Michigan, she labored in that school-house for 
three weeks, and took the hearts of the people so much that 
the town was profoundly interested. Scores were converted, and 
among them leading people. A church was at once organized, and 
a good house was erected, and Bro. Grice employed as preacher. 

For a year she was preacher of the church at Byron, south 
of Grand Rapids. In both of these places, as elsewhere, she is en- 
shrined in the hearts of hundreds. 

In July, 1881 a temperance mass meeting was held on the fair 
grounds in Akron, O., continuing through Saturday and Sunday. 
At this meeting the leading temperance men of the State were 
present — Samuel F. Gary, of Cincinnati ; I. A. Justice, of Youngs- 
town ; S. G. McKee, of Alliance, and Col. I. W. Tucker, of Colum- 



Introduction. xv 



"bus. On Lord's day morning, religious services were held, when 
Mrs. Butler delivered a temperance sermon. Meeting General Gary 
in the afternoon, he remarked, ' ' If you can preach as well as your 
wife, you are a good preacher." 

At the General Convention, at Louisville, in 1880, she spoke for 
the C. W. B. M., and at various State and district conventions she 
was heard on the many important questions included in gospel tem- 
perance and missionary work during every year since that time. 

As late as the last winter she labored in the northeastern part of 
the State of Pennsylvania, delivering twenty-eight discourses, 
usually an hour in length, in twenty-five days, besides shorter talks 
and addresses in addition. In her labors among the churches she 
sought to arouse Christian women to organize auxiliary societies of 
the C. W. B. M. The other arm of her work was to organize 
Christian women into auxiliaries of the W. C. T. U. In both of 
these works, which lay so near to her heart, she was very successful. 
Early in this year she was appointed a State organizer of the N. W. 
C. T. U., and was preparing to prosecute this mission when her lit- 
tle remaining strength finally failed her. Her persistent labors had 
been performed in great feebleness and suffering. From the first 
she did not waste her strength, but scrupulously husbanded it for 
her work. She spoke calmly, deliberately, and with the least possi- 
ble physical exertion. Her clear and precise articulation enabled 
her to be heard by a very large audience in her usually easy tone of 
voice, without ever straining her powers. Her speaking seemed to 
strengthen her chest and lungs, and on the whole her health ap- 
peared to be benefited by her work. 

After the flood which happened in Louisville more than a year 
ago, she was instrumental in promoting the religious awakening in 



xvi Introduction. 



our churches in that city — more particularly among the sisters. 
Bro. A. I. Hobbs, describing the workers in the Old-Path Gtude, 
said: "Justice to Sister Marie R. Butler requires me to say that 
much of this good work is due, under God, to her clear brain, 
warm heart, and eloquent tongue." 

During my labors at Troy, Pa., in the first part of February, she 
preached for me, as her custom was. Those sermons on February 
3d and loth were her last. The final one, entitled "The Scarlet 
Thread," was listened to by a large audience, many of whom were 
the leading people of the community. Reports tell me that she 
spoke like one inspired. Such a theme — the blood of Christ run- 
ning through the Christian system like a scarlet thread, was her po- 
etical conception of Christ's all-pervasiveness. Spurgeon says that 
Paul was such a preacher that he was ready, after preaching, to 
walk down from his pulpit and lie down in his coffin. It was so 
with her. The next time she entered the church she was in her 
shroud. 

She went to church and to her engagements as president of the 
W. C. T. U., in Johnstown, as long as she could drag one foot after 
another. Her errands were all in these directions. She labored as 
long as she could move, and, like Neander, who worked to the last, 
saying good-bye, and composed himself to sleep in Jesus, and also 
like Calvin, who asked to be supported while he wrote with his 
dying fingers, saying, "I want the Master, when he comes, to find 
me working," so she, who used to say, "If I wait until I am well, 
or even better thin sick, I shall never do anything," only when she 
had done all she could, and when she could do no more, com- 
placently lay down upon her bed, and without a doubt or anxiety, 
as without ecstasy or depression, she confidently waited for the com- 



Introduction. xvii 



ing of the Lord. We read to her precious words from her Book — 
especially her favorite, the 23d Psalm. And we sang precious words 
from the Hymn and Tune-Book, "Abide with me," axid "Yes, for 
me," etc., which seemed to refresh her. The ladies of her own 
and other churches, and the W. C. T. U., who nursed her, have 
many precious thoughts which she expressed. "What can poor 
sinners do when they come to die without a dear Saviour to lean 
upon ?" George Whitfield used to say that the Lord would not re- 
quire him to' give any testimony when he came to his dying hour, 
for he had borne so much testimony for him during his active life. 
So was it with Mrs. Butler. She asked her physicians to tell her 
the whole truth concerning her case, adding, "It will make no dif- 
ference to me, as I have been for many years preparing for this 
time." She prayed for her release; she asked the Saviour to take 
her, for life was pain, and it never had been otherwise. The phy- 
sicians and many Christian women had done their utmost. Hun- 
dreds had prayed for her. And as her feet touched the cold waters, 
she raised her large eyes to the faces of mother, husband and chil- 
dren, and with the plea of a departing soul, like the cry of the dying 
Christ, she said with infinite yearning, "Pray for me," and fell 

asleep. 

Just afternoon of the day. 
Just afternoon of her life. 

Hearts are stricken sorely at home, and measurably everywhere. 

The story of her life and work and departure will be told for many 

a day in all the religious circles of this community, and others 

where she has lived. She belonged denominationally to one, but 

practically, as the Presbyterian preacher said at her funeral, to 

all the churches and all the people of the town, and as another 

preacher added, to the State, the nation, and the world at large. 



xviii Introduction, 



Funeral services were held in the Christian Church in Johns- 
town, in which some of the leading preachers most feelingly partic- 
ipated, and a large concoursd of workers for humanity from all the 
churches were present. After the services, a sorrowful procession 
followed her remains to the P. R. R. Depot, en route to Louisville, 
Ky. On this final day, appropriate services were held in her own 
church, at Fourth and Walnut, by Elders A. I. Hobbs and Geo. E. 
Walk, the former of whom delivered a most discriminating address. 
And then we laid her to rest by the side of her children in the beau- 
tiful cemetery of her old home, from which disease banished her 
while living, but most gracefully and hospitably received her again 
to a peaceful sepulcher. 

And so her memory rests embalmed in the hearts of the Christian 
and philanthropic people of the town where she spent her last 
months ; and no less tenderly embalmed is it in the hearts of the 
same classes of Christian workers in the city of Louisville, as 
in many another place. Thomas D. Butler. 



PART I 

POETRY. 



THE CHRISTIAN STANDARD ON THE 
FIELD OF ARMAGEDDON. 

Once, faint, and weary of the world around me — 
The mists before me, and the clouds behind — 

My spirit drooping with the flesh that bound me, 
And growing fainter as my faith declined ; 

Strange doubting heresies grew o'er my spirit — 
The noisome fungi of a stagnant soul ; 

The Good and Evil that our lives inherit 
Lost their proportions in a darkened whole. 

While doubt loomed darkly on the side of Error, 
Faith glimmered feebly on the brink of night — 

I deemed the struggle far too full of horror. 
And too unequal to be just and right. 

Could Love Eternal give us nothing better ? — 
But here my weary questioning soul grew still — 

Dropped all unconscious every earthly fetter, 
And wandered gladly at its own wild will ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



But paused at length upon the gleaming sky-way 
O'er which the angels on their missions come, 

To lead us over God's celestial highway, 
When we are weary and are going home. 

Beneath my feet the struggling world was lying, 
And to my spirit's sight was then revealed; 

Eternal Wisdom, to my soul replying. 

Solved the deep mystery that Life concealed. 

This was our birthright : as each being entered. 
He sought his place amid the deadly strife ; 

Found some bright standard where his high hopes 
centered. 
And fought his battle on the field of Life. 

Here Mammon's banner on the wind was flying. 
Catching the sunlight with its bars of gold ; 

And there Ambition flaunted o'er the dying 
The mocking purple of each gorgeous fold. 

There was no rest, and death the only ending — 
The winds were laden with the flags unfurled. 

And streamed forever o'er the wild contending. 
The sin-born splendors of a groaning world. 

In the wild centre of the vast upheaving, 

Rose the white standard of the Christian Faith, 

Just where the strife grew deadliest, and the living 
Seemed most unequal in the grasp of Death. 

Like a white sail upon the breast of ocean, 

Riding triumphant while the storm-winds blow, 

That radiant banner through the fierce commotion. 
Floated in calmness o'er the strife below. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j 



While legions struggled for the mocking splendors 
Of gaudy banners on the dim air flung ; 

That standard rallied but a few defenders, 

Though Earth and Heaven were in the balance hung. 

Oh dark eclipse ! would human sin and blindness 
Defy alike the wrath and love of God ? 

And would the banner of His loving-kindness 
Float unregarded where the Saviour trod? — 

Were there no echoes in the wild winds sleeping, 
Of Him who suffered that we might be blessed ? 

Had earth no relics in her holy keeping — 

No blood-stained mem'ries on her scar-worn breast ? 

Infinite Knowledge, with its deep divining, 

Had surely fathomed what His wisdom planned? 

A sweet contentment hushed my wild repining — 
The good and evil struggled in His hand. 

Nor vainly struggled ; for beyond the river. 

Across the bridge from faith to promise spanned, 

God's angels led his war-worn heroes over, 
To bear His standard in the Peaceful Land. 

These patient heroes who had won promotion, 
To wear their honors on a bleeding breast, 

Rose from the chaos and the wild commotion, 
To the calm presence of Eternal Rest. 

Passing o'er fields rich with eternal flowers. 
That drink the sunshine that is always there ; 

They waved their standard from the shining towers, 
In the white radiance of the heavenly air. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



The sin-stained earth with other blood must redden : 
They had gone upward to their great reward ; 

While we upon the field of Armageddon, 
Were fighting still the battles of the Lord. 

We were co-workers with the great All-Father, 
In the deep mystery of His wondrous plan ; — 

The good and evil of the ages gather 
For final struggle in the fate of man. 

We know the issue of the fearful trial : 

He holds the evil as his smiting-rod ; 
We read the shadows on His wondrous dial. 

And we are wiser than the "Sons of God." 

What are the banners of the earth before us ? 

For he who "brought upon the earth a sword " 
Gave with the standard that is streaming o'er us. 

Strength from His arm, and wisdom from the Lord. 

Holding our standard with a firmer grasping, 
We stand transfigured in its radiant light ; 

For all the promises of God are clasping 

Their rainbow glories o'er its stainless white. 



THE FALLING LEAF. 

(written in her thirteenth year.) 

The falling leaf! it sinks to earth 
So gently, and it seems to say : 

My little work is finished now. 
My race is run, I go my way — 

Swept by the winds, to earth I bow. 



Poetry and Pivse of Marie R. Butler. 5 



'T was but a day — see thou and learn — 
And I was beautiful and gay, 

The glory of the summer tree — 
But ah ! my beauty fades to-day ; 

Learn from the withered thing you see. 

So with thy life, all glory fades ; 

So strength and power, like me, decay ; 

So sweetness, grace and worth must die — 
Fall like the summer leaves away — 

All things of earth with me must He. 

Thy youth is blooming green and fair ; 
But age will come to thee at last ; 

Thy form will bend, thine eye grow dull, 
Thou 'It fall like me before the blast ; — 

And thus the course of aeres roll. 



A BABY'S FACE. 

'T is the beautiful work of the hand Divine, 
Where a soul-ray sleeps in an earthly shrine ; 
'T is pure as an angel's heaven-lit brow, 
Or thoughts that well up in its bosom now ; 
And oh ! how I wish for some mystic art 
To unveil the thoughts in a baby's heart. 

And when sleep has kissed the fluttering breast. 
And the dewy lips, and the soul to rest ; 
When the eyelids close o'er their wells of blue 
As the petals hide the rose's dew — 
Lest glances of love, like the sun's bright ray, 
Should steal the dew from their depths away ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



I 've longed to know if the spirit lies, 

Like the half-veiled light in the sleeper's eyes, 

Unconsciously holding a hidden power, 

That will wake to life in a future hour. 

With all the sweet, unspoken things 

That sleep like angels with folded wings. 

But most of all, I have tried to dream 
What clouds will o'ershadow thy pure life-stream. 
And how many blushes, and smiles, and tears 
Are waiting for thee in the future years ; 
What hopes will blossom, what love decay, 
What lights will pass from thy soul away. 

O fair young child, with thy spotless brow. 
So fresh from the hand of thy Maker now — 
Though the fingers of Time with the iron of care 
Shall engrave deep lines of sorrow there — 
May no dark sin, with its earthly stain 
Rest there, till thou goest to God again. 

But life has many a snare, sweet child. 
And many a path that 's dark and wild. 
There shadows fall in eternal night. 
Which only the smile of God can light ; 
And only those who trust in Him 
Shall safely pass through the shadows dim. 



SPIRIT MUSINGS. 

Only a picture upon the wall ; 
A beautiful picture — that is all. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



A little form for my heart to hold ; 
A little face that will ne'er grow old. 

But a mother's heart is a holy cell, 

Where the faces and forms of her children dwell. 

My heart, like a ship on the sea of life, 

If it weathers the gale and storm and strife, 

By soft winds favored or rough winds driven, 
Will carry that little face to Heaven. 

But 't is a dream and nothing more ; 
It will not stand on the blessed shore, 

To welcome me when my toil is done. 
And my battle of life is fought and won : 

But the angels will finish what I began, 
And develop the child to a perfect man ; 

And my soul's sweet bud in Heaven will grow 
To a fairer thing than the earth could know. 

Whose being expands in the airs of Heaven, 
Must grow to the stature Christ has given ; 

And I shall look up to my radiant child. 
And down on the little face that smiled. 

Will vague regret for my earthly toy 
Dim the glory that crowns my boy ? 

Or will the picture I loved of yore, 
Be a beautiful picture — nothing more ? 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



SPIRIT-CHANGES. 

Like Ocean in its hoarse unrest — 

Wild surges of the sea — 
My moaning thoughts break on the shores 

Of brooding Memory. 

My idle hands have lost their work, 

My life its sweet employ, 
For precious plans lie folded up, 

And buried with my boy. 

And all the earth is changed to me: 

If I am sad or gay, 
No shining sun can ever bring 

The light of yesterday. 

We sometimes pass from childhood on. 
Through youth and riper years, 

Nor note the changes as they come 
Through varying hopes and fears ; 

But sometimes in our journeying, 

A landmark on the way 
Remains, to tell us whence we bore 

An older heart away. 

A little milestone it may be, 

But when Life's sun is low, 
It casts a shadow far across 

The lengthened way we go. 

So all the earth is changed to me : 
If I am sad or gay. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



No rising sun can ever bring 
The light of yesterday. 

I know I stand on higher ground, 
To view Life's earnest plan — 

I see with more prophetic eyes 
The hope and toil of man. 

Older and wiser, better too 

My struggling soul has grown, — 

Beyond Life's dark horizon line, 
It wandered forth alone ; 

And Heaven was opened to my view, 

I saw a vision blest — 
A child that on my bosom grew 

Slept on the Father's breast ; 

And, echoed from the jasper walls, 
A whisper came to me — 
' * She thought to lead hivi, but his hands 
Shall lead her up to Thee." 

And then the gates of pearl swung back. 

And shut the glory in. 
And I was standing here alone 

With sorrow, earth and sin. 

So all the earth is changed to me. 

My life and labor too. 
Father, ordain me for Thy work. 

And teach me what to do. 

Though darkness o'er my soul has come, 
I may not question why — 



10 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



This is the wind and storm and fire 
That now is passing by. 

But when the "still small Voice" shall float 

In calmness out to me, 
My soul shall know its higher life, 

And read its destiny. 



EARTH-ANCHORS. 

Above my head the pitying stars are shining, 
As if their holy eyes were dim with tears. 

While I, life's mystery but half divining, 
Look up and onward to the coming years. 

Softly the shadows fall away that cover 

The future from the present, where I stand ; 

And I, like ancient Israel, looking over, 

Catch the far hill-tops of the Promised Land. 

But I am mortal, and my eye grows weary 
With its far flight into the heavenly air ; 

And lesser lights, along life's pathway dreary. 
Eclipse the splendor of the glory there. 

I love the earth with all its teeming beauty — • 
The vineyard and the garden of our Lord ; 

I see fair flowers grow on the hills of duty. 
And toil may pluck them as its sweet reward. 

And dear hands draw us with a touch so tender, 
Our hearts forgive the earthward impetus ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ii 



And dear eyes hold us with their loving splendor, 
Till Earth alone seems Heaven enough for us. 

'T is not idolatry that holds my spirit : 
My soul turns ever to the farther shore ; 

But from the Earth, our mother, we inherit 
Ties that will bind us here for evermore, 

Till on her bosom, in a quiet slumber. 
The spirit's warfare with the flesh is o'er, 

And God shall add us to the holy number 
Who rise all stainless from the chains they wore. 

And even then, where trod the dear Redeemer, 
Earthward our souls may wander to and fro ; 

And some tired heart, like Israel's ancient dreamer. 
May watch the angels as they come and go. 



A MOTHER'S ANNIVERSARY. 

A year ago, my darling boy — 

A year of sadness, tears and joy, 

Of Heavenly trust, with Earth's alloy — 

My grief and faith stood side by side, 
I could not think that thou hadst died, 
But only left me purified ; 

No more a child for earth and me, 
Through life and death, passed on to be 
An heir of immortality. 



12 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



The wound that bleeds with long regret 

May heal at last, but never yet 

A mother's heart could quite forget. 

Though I have toiled and prayed and striven, 
A calm like thine has not been given ; 
For thou hast been a year in Heaven. 

I am a child to-day, and thou — 

Ah! yes, thou art God's hand, I know, 

Stretched out to guide me here below. 

In changed relation to my child, • 

I grope a pathway dark and wild. 

To where thy love-framed image smiled. 

But thy white feet, unsoiled by sin, 
Above the clouds that hem me in, 
Still walk in paths where God has been. 

Infinite tides of glory drop 
Into thy soul's expanded cup, 
To fill thy empty being up. 

Across the boundary I lean 

To catch what thy dear eyes have seen, — 

But still the veil must intervene. 



BROKEN DREAMS. 

The broken ways of change 

Are rugged steps whereon our souls may rise. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ij 



Ere yet the miracle that we call death, 
Embalms them for the skies. 

And when at last we stand 

Upon that far-off summit we must climb, 
To take our first look of the world beyond — 

The last of earth and time ; 

Upon each radiant spot, 

Where we have tarried in our onward way, 
We shall but see a grave where some lost hope, 

Or sunny dream-child lay. 

But love may gather up 

Our broken dreams, just as the scattered rain 
Is all collected by the potent sun, 

To fill the streams again. 

So when the silver cord 

Is snapped asunder, and the heart is stilled. 
Perhaps each soul may find in heaven 

Its dreams are all fulfilled. 

Perhaps the severed links 

They mourned so sadly, while on earth they trod, 
Bound them more firmly than unbroken chains. 

About the feet of God. 

Perhaps our earthly dreams 

Are but the glimmerings of eternal light, 
That pierce the veil that still must hide 

God's glory from our sight. 

Till like the veil of old, 

That hid the Presence in the holiest place. 



// Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



It shall be rended, and the light 
Stream from His shining face. 

When from the spirit falls — 

Falls the last fold of the enwrapping clay — 
Fades the last shadow of the soul's eclipse, 

In Heaven's eternal day, 

Perhaps the golden threads, 

Broken and tangled in earth's weary strife, 
Will all be woven in the shining web 

Of everlasting life. 

And all the endless years, 

Like golden orbits for our souls shall seem ; 
While we remember life's sad pilgrimage 

But as a broken dream. 



"BROKEN WINGS." 

It sometimes seems the saddest lot 
To walk through Fate's uneven ways, 

And find, when hardest tasks are done. 
Unequal shares of blame and praise. 

To know our souls are true and firm, 
Determined, if at last we fall, 

To scale heroic heights, and die 
Like sentries on the outer wall ; 

Yet tread amid a careless throng 
That see not where the triumph lies. 



Poetjy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. /j 



Nor stop to mark with altar-stone 
The spot whereon a hero dies. 

Ah ! this is sad, but those who toil 
For crowns immortal, do not mourn, 

When drooping laurels they have won 
On other brows are proudly worn. 

It may be sad, but still at last 

Our highest praise is found with Him 

Before whose smile the lesser lights 
Of mortal fame grow vague and dim. 

But there is something sadder still — 
The non-fulfillment of a dream 

Whose purpose lies across our lives 
Like broken bridges o'er a stream, 

That seem to touch the farther side. 

Inviting effort o'er and o'er, 
Yet rise and fall with every tide. 

And leave us waiting on the shore, 

Waiting, until the sun is set, 
And all the way is yet untrod, 

And nothing, but our shapeless dreams. 
Is left to offer up to God. 

Ah ! sense of powers that hidden lie 
Beneath some mountain weight of care, 

And wings that never upward fly, 
To circle in the vital air ! 

Ah ! sense of something yet to be, 

And yet which might have been before, 



i6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Something we long" and strive to find. 
Yet may not clasp for evermore ! 

Poor souls, that climb a weary height, 
To find at last the topmost tower 

That crowned a life's exalted dream, 
One step beyond their blighted power ! 

Those bear the saddest lots, who could 
Have made of life a grander thing, 

But for the purpose unfulfilled. 
Or reached upon a broken wing. 



MUSCLE AND BRAIN. 

Walk in the light of thy beautiful dreaming — 

Dreams are the wings that may raise thee to God, 
Light-pinioned angels our weakness redeeming — 
Soul leading Sense up the wearisome road. 
Make human and real 
Thy grandest ideal, 
Embody thy dream with thy muscle and brain. 

Stand by the rock of thy purpose and mould it, 

With chisel and hammer strike blow upon blow — 
Thy angel lies hid, but thy work shall reveal it, 
Thou art hewing for God in His quarry below. 
Hoping, believing, 
Not blindly achieving, 
Toil for the Lord with thy muscle and brain. 

Stand at the loom of thy destiny weaving, 
A miracle warp is before thee outspread — 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. if 



Who weaves for the world for himself is achieving, 
For God is beside him to double the thread. 

Waiting the issues 

Of wonderful tissues, 
Toil for the world with thy muscle and brain. 

Stand at the helm while thy life-ship is riding 

Over the turbulent billows of Fate ; 
We break from the arms of Omnipotent guiding 
Unless we endeavor, and labor, and wait. 
An angel beside us 
Shall strengthen and guide us, 
Who toil at the helm with our muscle and brain. 

Earth's glory goes on like the change of the seasons ; 

God turns a new leaf for each oncoming age ; 
And each with its failures, successes and reasons, 
Contributes an ill or a well written page. 
A thought that is grand 
Will live on and expand 
Slowly rounded to form by our muscle and brain. 

Stand on the hill, twixt the now and the morrow. 

Catch the first glimpse of the incoming dawn ; 
Behind press the feet that are heaving with sorrow, 
Before are the feet of the children unborn. 
O Father, renew us. 
Shine in us and through us, 
To will and to do Avith our muscle and brain. 

Look with the eyes of a great inspiration 

Up where the pathway lies farthest and dim. 

In the thought of to-day lies the fate of a nation ; 
Be sure He ordains us to lead it to Him. 



1 8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Are we ready, if straightway 
Shall open the gateway 
To grander achievements of muscle and brain ? 

Strike with God's hammer and trust Him forever, — 

Strike on the resonant anvil of Time ; 
Soft opportunities wrought by endeavor 

Harden to deeds that are grand and sublime. 
Providence waits for us. 
Forging our fates for us. 
Striking her blows with our muscle and brain. 

The clouds have rolled back, and our glorified vision 

Sees God in the conflict, and Jesus is there. 
And the Book of all books, with its holy commission, 
Borne on by our lips and embalmed by our prayers. 
God's light hath unbound us, 
The workmen crowd round us : 
Ordain for thy service our muscle and brain. 



THE ROYAL ROAD OF DUTY. 

Why stand ye gazing up to God ? 

There are no footprints in the air; 
Feet were ordained to walk the sod, 

And angels meet us everywhere. 

When on our homeward march sublime 
We bear the victor's gathered spoil, 

'T will be but things of sense and time — 
The daily worship of our toil. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ig 



For duty hath no soihng hand, 

And labor never leaves a stain, 
But purposes divine and grand 

Are wrought by human toil and pain. 

Sublime ideals meet our eyes 

Bent o'er ascending stairs of hope, 

But by successive steps we rise 
To beings of immortal scope, 

Not when we idly fold our hands — 
For muscle only grows with pain ; 

And evermore the soul expands 
With pulses of an aching brain. 

How dare we look to Heaven in prayer 

Unless we toil along the way, 
And through our daily pain and care 

Grow nearer God from day to day? 

We only ask to be like Him ; 

We only hope when life is gone 
To bridge the river dark and dim 

With these strong words : Thy will be done. 

Yet not in words that will was done ; 

But Christ, in toil and sweat and blood. 
His great eternal kingdom won, 

And on the brink of glory stood. 

His life began in emptiness, 

And struggled on through pain, to rise 
O'er boundless heights of love, to bless 

The world at last with sacrifice. 



20 Poetiy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



His prayers were echoes of his deeds. 

Prophetic of their future yield — 
God's blessing ©n the scattered seeds 

Of an eternal harvest field, 

Whose boundaries stretch through earth and time, 
Beyond the sun-touched hills of prayer, 

Far into a serener clime 

Where God's immortal reapers are.* 

Ah ! broken winged are prayers that rise 

Where idle feet the vineyard trod ; 
Poor stranger-birds in Paradise, 

And aliens in the home of God. 



THE POET OF THE HEARTH. 

O Poet of the hearth ! 
Though Earth may mar thy spirit's heavenly calm. 
Yet grief, and love, and changeless trust, are still 

The rhythm of its psalm. 

Some wondrous hands have swept 
Across thy spirit's sweet yEolian strings, 
And left their echo in the melody 

Thy spirit sits and sings. 

O vessel of God's love ! 
He gives thee less than man, yet gives thee more — 
Less power to carve thy thoughts in deeds 

That were but dreams before ; 

* "And the reapers are the angels." 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 21 



More power of human love, 
To make a palace for thy dreaming- soul, — 
To see o'er all life's tangled, broken things, 

The beauty of the whole ; 

More power to catch the sun 
With the bright lenses of thy cheerful eyes, 
Or, bended o'er the storm-drenched hills of life, 

God's rainbow in the skies ; 

More power to take His gifts, 
And bind them fondly to a thankful breast. 
And when his hand withdraws them, stronger faith 

To follow to His rest. 

The saints of old were men — 
The priests and prophets of Jehovah's reign ; 
But Christ, the Saviour, came and dignified 

Our womanhood again. 

How with His holy plans 
Thy destiny was woven, who shall tell ? 
But from thy patient heart, like rusted chains 

The curse of Eden fell. 

And when the Logos came 
To wear the garment of our flesh and blood, 
The stream was thine, O woman ; thine alone, 

The parentage of God. 

Upon thy virgin breast 
The holy Child was laid by hands divine ; 
The purest bosom for his earthly rest, 

O womanhood, was thine. 



22 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



And through the lowly life, 
Where not a stain but tears could e'er be found, 
When weary feet bore weary heart and brain, 

Upon their weary round. 

His only glimpse of rest — 
His glimpse of what a human home might be — 
Was with the faithful hearts that loved him best, 

In quiet Bethany. 

A woman's ointment soothed 
The holy breast that bore the scourging rod, — 
No woman's lips denied, nor kiss betrayed 

The wounded Son of God. 

But then, His bleeding hands 
Swept o'er thy spirit's sweet ^olian strings, 
And left an echo in the melody 

Thy spirit sits and sings. 

The passing years, that keep 
The faithful record for the Book above. 
Repeat the sacred story that was told 

Of woman's faithful love. 

Still, as the world goes on. 
Proud brains will question and proud hearts rebel ; 
Yet seldom on a woman's heart the blight 

And curse of doubting fell. 

Through ages yet to come 
Thy holy birthright shall be handed down ; 
And thou in faith shalt bear the heaviest cross, 

And win the brightest crown. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2j 



MY HALF-WAY HOUSE TO HEAVEN. 

I sit and work till shadows fall 

Dim o'er the sun's bright golden way, 

And lids of evening softly close 
The dazzled eyes of weary day ; 

Then fling my garb of toil aside, 

For the soft robe of rest and dream. 

And if my hands have caught a stain 
I wash them in the silver stream 

Of Truth, that o'er the plains of Life 
Still flows along, a crystal tide, 

And bears no tinge of earth to stain 
Life's river on the other side. 

The dust that gathers on my brow. 
The dust of labor and of care, 

An angel wipes with golden wings 

That stir the depths of slumberous air. 

The cross is lifted from my heart, 

A crown laid on my grief-worn brow, 

And down the channels of my face 
No bitter rain is falling now. 

Fate stands beside me all the while 
To watch my soul in beauty dressed, 

But hides her frowning with a smile — 
For I shall be the angels' guest. 



24- Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



I hear a murmur in the air, 

The rushing sound of coming wings ; 
And I forget my toil and care, 

With all earth's sad and sordid things. 

A something brighter still than light 

Is sifted over crystal walls ; 
And backward o'er the gloom of night, 

A glory like a curtain falls. 

This is my half-way house to Heaven, 
The lighted palace of my dreams ; 

And here I meet the loved and lost, 
And all is real here that seems. 

I hold no forms of beauteous mould 
That reason tells me are but clay ; 

I kiss no waxen eyelids down 

O'er eyes whose light has passed away. 

And dear ones that the earth forgot — 
She hid them in her breast so long — 

Are singing, but no sad refrain 

Comes like the haunting ghost of song. 

For here no wailing undertone 

Rings through each sweet and happy sound ; 
And where the palm trees meet the sun, 

They cast no shadow on the ground. 

And where the nodding roses bloom, 
They hide no withered leaves away; 

For summer here is endless June — 
A thousand years are but a day. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 25 



Here in my half-way house to Heaven, 
Beyond the bhght of pain or sin. 

Within the palace of my dreams, 
A shining circle hems me in ; 

And in the radiant air they sit, 
Each in the golden light, a gem, 

For when they left the world below 
They trailed the sunshine after them. 

And day by day I follow them 
Up o'er this shining track of gold. 

And these poor yearning arms embrace 
What earth can never more behold. 

And then a little angel comes 
To nestle in the dear old place, 

And all my being warms beneath 
The radiance of one little face. 

But soon I kiss the shining brow, 
And lift the angel from my breast. 

For in this half-way house to Heaven 
I am not dweller — only guest. 

And Fate is standing at the door. 

And beckoning down the shining track; 

But when the task she sets is done 
My yearning soul will wander back. 

There youth eternal crowns them all. 

No face shall ever fade away; 
For in the palace of my dreams 

A thousand years are but a day. 



26 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



SNOW. 



I looked from my window, one dark winter eve : 
Earth seemed like a captive to murmur and grieve, 
Her poor fettered bosom so wounded and bare 
In the chains of the frost that were forged in the air ; 
She seemed like a soul in the bondage of sin, 
As blasted without and as hopeless within ; 

The shriek of the wind 

Seemed the howl of a fiend 
O'er a soul that at last irredeemably sinned. 

In the morning I looked from my window, and, lo ! 
The earth was redeemed from her bondage and woe ; 
She stood like a Magdalene garmented white. 
Her pardon revealed in the gloom of the night, 
When love with soft fingers had covered the sin 
That blasted her bosom without and within, 

Like a soul that has passed 

Through a night overcast, 
To stand in the infinite glory at last. 

O beautiful vision, O lesson of heaven, 

Old things are forgotten as well as forgiven ; 

The past is sealed up, and this drapery white 

Is the peace which comes down from the ' ' Father of 

Light "- 
The wings of His love o'er a desert unfurled, 
His "mantle of charity" over the world, — 

To cover her storm- 

Beaten bosom, till warm 
She springs into gladness and verdure and form. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. zy 



That morn, how the snow lay unbroken and deep, 
And white o'er the world as it wakened from sleep ; 
And [^the sunshine streamed down from the glory- 
above. 
Like a broad flowing river of infinite love. 
Whose measureless waves from their fountain o'er- 

ran 
To break on the desolate dwelling of man ! 

Their surges lay white 

On the shores of the night. 
And the snow was a crystallized ocean of light. 

But alas for the spoiling that morning would bring ! 
That beauty would pass for a valueless thing ; 
And the half-blinded vision of worldly-wise men 
Would pass by the picture again and again, 
Till the snow would be blackened by toiling and 

strife, — 
Those dark counter-currents of hurrying life, 

In whose waves men are hurled, 

And hurried and whirled 
In a maelstrom, whose vortex is vast as the world. 

Ah ! let us like children rejoice as we go, 

In the earth, and the air, and the light, and the 

snow; 
These pictures are wrought by the wonderful Giver 
To hang on the walls of our memory forever, 
Expanding our dreams of the glory and bliss 
Of the world that 's to come, by the beauty of this, 

Making it clearer. 

And better and dearer. 
Seen through a glass darkly, yet plainer and nearer. 



28 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



But the picture has passed from the gazing- of men, 
For the snowwas all blackened when night came again, 
Like humanity clinging to earth and the sod, 
Losing the glory and likeness of God ; 
Till it only can hope to dissolve like the snow- 
In the sunshine of love and lie sleeping below, 

Losing the stain 

Of earth's contact, and then 
Rise like the vapor to heaven again. 



SNOW. 



I watch the white snow-flakes that flutter and fly, 
With their millions of Avings, from the snow-burdened 

sky; 
As silent and soft as the answer to prayer. 
They fall on the earth, or they brood in the air ; 
And cover earth's frozen and desolate things 
With the marvelous down of their beautiful wings. 

The crystals are shed 

On the graves of our dead. 
And where our lost living, forgetting us, tread. 

The earth has ungirdled the garb of her toil, 
And put off the stain of humanity's soil ; 
Like a queen, in her ermine, resplendent and white, 
No foot-print of man on her vesture to-night ; 
She sits in the glimmer, and sparkle, and glow. 
Her lap full of jewels, — the glittering snow ; — 

But the sorrow and sin. 

That to-night are shut in. 
Will walk where, unsullied, the snow-flakes have been. 



Poetry ojid Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2g 



Like a soft-folded curtain, bespangled with gleams, 
The snow flutters down, and trails over my dreams — 
My Childhood comes back with its clamor and din, 
The sky is shut out, and the earth is shut in ; 
The snow-drifts are miracle mountains, that rise 
From the snow on the earth to the snow in the 
skies, 

A Babel of snow 

And confusion and glow — 
A chaos of crystal above and below. 

Now the snow-flakes that hurry and gather o'er- 

head 
Drift down on the vanishing face of the dead ; — 
I shriek and call after, but still they go on, 
And here in the snow I am dreaming alone ; 
And yet not alone, though they slumber below. 
Wrapped in their downy white blanket of snow ; 
For their spirits are free 
Where their dwelling must be, — 
And perhaps they are watching and waiting for 

me. 

Has the snow touched the spring where the tear- 
fountain lies? 
Or is it the flakes that fall Into my eyes ? 
Ah! yes, I remember — I can not forget. 
For the clouds of the morning hang over me yet ; 
But God has been with me, and these are not tears 
That water the desert of sorrowing years ; 

But the snow-drift, that lay 

On my spirit to-day. 
In the light of His presence is melting away. 



JO Poetry arid Prose of Marie R. Butler, 



THE SHIPS OF DOOM. 

" The wicked shall be banished from the presence of the Lord, 
and the glory of His power." 

Away from our Father, and Heaven, and Light, 

Far off in Eternity drifting, 
In a ship that went out from the harbor of Life, 
To be lost in the chaos, where infinite night 

Its infinite shadows is Hfting— 

Sailing out from the Earth through the ocean of sky. 

Where cloud-isles in glory are lying. 
To catch a last glimpse of the headlands of Heaven, 
But to bid them a longing, eternal good-bye, 
And drift out in the dark with the dying — 

In a doom-guided ship v/ithout compass or helm, 

To be daring the darkness forever. 
With a shroud for a sail, while the desolate mast 
Is cleaving a path through the desolate realm 

That the living and dying must sever. 

O terrible voyage where God will forsake ! 

O voyage with never an ending. 
And never a place to cast anchor again. 
While the horror of darkness that covers our wake 

With the horror before us is blending. 

Till the eye and the ear forget vision and sound. 

In the silence to darkness replying ; 
And e'en the dread power of dissolving in space 
Would be bliss, to the soul in its loneliness bound, 
Where living is infinite dying. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ji 



CAMP NELSON. 



'T is May ; and on the hillside green 

The apple blossoms fall, 
And clovers set their roots between 

The boulders in the wall. 

Above the pond the tall trees bend, 

To watch its quiet rest ; 
And, murmuring-, chide the winds that send 

A ripple o'er its breast. 

The blue of heaven is mirrored there ; 

And stars, reflected bright, 
Have gazed, until the waters fair 

Have buried half their light. 

But see, what fearful shadows creep 
Where stars of heaven look down ; 

While round "Camp Nelson's" rocky steep 
The fearful lines move on — 

Move on to mar the green hillside, 

And apple blossoms fair; 
With ashen spaces black and wide — 

The barren steps of war. 

And where the shining grasses catch 

The blossoms as they fall, 
The midnight guard shall walk and watch. 

In silence over all. 



J 2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



And when the morning sun shall kiss 

The tears of night away, 
The wandering wind shall sigh,, to miss 

The bloom of yesterday. 

And where the dainty clovers love 

The kisses of the sun. 
The cannon's breath shall ruin strew 

Before the day is done. 

So loving Nature, weaving bloom, 

Spends all her patient hours ; 
Man marks his way with death and doom, 

And Nature hers with flowers. 



LINES ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND. 

Farewell, dear friend, a long farewell, 

For earth has lost thee now ; 
And silence gathers round thy heart, 

And grave-dust on thy brow. 

But where perpetual sunbeams lie, 

And never mortal trod, 
Without a stain of earthly touch, 

Thy spirit walks with God. 

And all the truths sublime and deep, 

We strive and long to find. 
Infinite Love unfoldeth now 

To an immortal mind. 



Poetfy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jj 



The ''tree of knowledge" only grows 

Within the walls of Heaven ; 
And only to immortal lips 

The blessed fruit is given. 

And Love, sweet bud of Heaven, grew here 

Where Christ and angels trod, 
Yet could not bloom ; it pined to feel 

The living smile of God, 

It never blossoms here on earth, 

Though watered by our tears ; 
In the Hereafter it will bloom, 

Through God's eternal years. 

And on thy fair, transfigured brow, 

Its blossoms angels twine ; 
For Heaven has not a gift too fair, 

Too precious to be thine. 



THORNS. 

To toil for knowledge, and to toil in vain ; 

To grant forgiveness, and receive but hate ; 
To long for friendship which we can not gain ; 

To read a mystery a day too late ; 
To love the beautiful, and only tread 

A stony pathway where we find no flowers ; 
To hear a whisper of a sin long dead 

And long repented, when the sin was ours ; 
To read a brother and to read him wrong — 

To lay our friendship at the feet of truth, 



j^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



And then to mourn in spirit, sore and long, 

The hasty judgment of a hasty youth ; 
To do our duty for the Saviour's sake. 

To those who curse us when our toil is done ; 
To make a sacrifice though heart should break, 

And none be wiser for the battle won ; 
To kiss the lips that we shall press no more — 

To lay our darling in the pure white snow ; 
To love a being whose contempt we bore, 

And hold the secret that he may not know ; 
To weep in agony beside the dead. 

And plead for pardon in a useless prayer ; 
To feel remorse upon a guilty head. 

And gather curses that our sins prepare ; 
To die in horror as we shriek ^^too late,'' 

And seal misfortune by reproaching Fate : 
TJiese are the wounding thorns of earth, and we 

With blood and tears work all our destiny ; 
These are the blossomings of sin and woe, 
The bitter harvest of the long-ago. 

Keep us, Father, in our blindness ; 
Hold us in Thy loving kindness. 



LIFE'S TIMEPIECE. 

Alone to-day and yesterday, 

And hills on hills stretch far and gray. 

Till Time's last sands shall fall away. 

And yet with mine these hills were trod 
By feet that found a greener sod 
Upon the sunset hills of God. 



Poetry and Prose of Maiie R. Butler. jj 



I linger, but they send no token ; 
I listen, but no word is spoken — 
The endless silence is unbroken, 

Save by my weary, plodding feet, 
That like twin echoes still repeat 
My heart's perpetual ebbing beat. 

But though my pulses creep or bound 
Through dull routine of sense or sound, 
My brain keeps on its weary round, 

As some weird time-piece, strange and old. 
Above a hearthstone dark and cold, 
Ticks on through ruin, dust and mold ; 

Ticks on through childhood, youth and prime, 
And marks with still, unvarying chime 
The lowest tidal ebb of Time. 

O sentient being, manifold, 

That keeps its strange tenacious hold 

On life, and heeds not growing old. 

It grows not old, the soul divine, 
Nor heeds each gathering human sign 
That marks the casket's slow decline. 

Till soon a loving hand will stay 
The strange, mysterious, patient play 
That wears the wheels of life away ; 

And, with these wondrous wheels, grow still 

All sense of coming good or ill. 

With human power, and hope, and will. 



J 6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



But Love, far-seeing and sublime, 
In some far-off, eternal clime. 
Will set them to a sweeter chime — 

A chime of long, perpetual day. 
Wherein no light shall fade away. 
Nor years bring ruin and decay ; 

Where all the wheels of life shall roll 
In grooves of God's divine control. 
And leave no friction on the soul ; 

Where, through the cycles as they run, 
Unmarked by dawn or setting sun, 
The perfect will of God is done : 

The Time-piece shall be wound again, 
And nevermore by human strain 
The silver cord be snapped in twain. 



AN HOUR OF SABBATH. 

Night is falling, calm and holy 

On the Sabbath free from care. 
Like the hand of God descending 

On His children bowed in prayer. 
Silence is His benediction, 

When His Spirit draweth nigh, 
And His children in the darkness 

Touch His mantle, trailing by — 



Poetry mid Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Touch His mantle, and grow stronger — 

Stronger for the march of Time, 
For the cross that Faith endureth. 

For the heights that Love must cHmb ; 
For the hght of heavenly beacons, 

Seen through tear-drops' bitter rain, 
Broken into rainbow splendors 

By these drops of human pain. 

What, though we should wake to-morrow 

With the cares we lose to-night 
Looming up like mountain ranges, 

Shutting heaven from our sight; 
Surely we are better, stronger, 

Higher lifted from the sod, 
With a faith more surely anchored 

To the steadfast throne of God. 

For where, oh our heavenly journey, 

Prayers and praise alternate rise. 
Build we of our earthly altars 

Golden stairways to the skies — 
Highways, where our prayers, ascending 

To the palace of our King, 
Keep ajar the golden doorways, 

While we linger faltering. 



MIDNIGHT. 

Night above the slumbering city, 
Night in many a weary heart, 

Where some dear beloved blossom. 
Some sweet hope-bud fell apart ; 



j8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler, 



Night above the murmuring forest, 
Night upon mid-ocean waves, 

Night around a thousand couches. 
Night above a thousand graves. 

Holy Midnight, tender watcher, 
Sitting on God's footstool down. 

O'er the couch of weary nature, 
Watching till her sleep has flown. 

See : thy dusky mantle traileth 
Darkly over half the globe — 

Round my shadow-haunted spirit. 
Let me fold thy dusky robe. 

I would haste beneath thy pinions 

To a far-off Eastern shore, 
Where a fair young dreamer sleepeth, 

Who is mine for evermore. 

Softly wrap thy mantling shadows 
Round the sleeper's heart and brain ; 

Let him dream of me — 'twill banish 
Every dream-remembered pain. 

In his heart my face is pictured 

On a glory-tinted ground ; 
Wrapped in olden dreams of beauty, 

Love immortal frames it round. 

So I leave him in thy keeping. 
Guardian angel of the night. 

Watch his pillow while he dreameth 
Of the swiftly coming light. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jq 



For I know that God will call us 
From these paths diverse and dim. 

And my thoughts, like many rivers, 
Rise in gratitude to Him. 



MIDNIGHT ANGELS. 

Soft shadows fall upon the stilly earth, 

And silence, peace and holy rest are brought 

On angel pinions from the spirit land. 

What is this holy presence ? What the power 

That guides us through the boundless fields of 

thought ; 
And with a mystic key unlocks the fount 
Of hopes and joys, undreamt of and untasted ? 
Do happy spirits from the unseen land, 
Leaving a world of glory and of light, 
Come softly mingling with the shadows gray, 
To bear our spirits from the darkening earth. 
Away from all its sorrow, toil and pain. 
To revel gladly for one happy hour 
In the atmosphere of heaven ? 
Or do God's ministers, the angels, bring 
Upon their balmy wings a zephyr from 
The breeze divine that floats in paradise ? 
Whate'er it be, we feel the wondrous spell, 
Akin to what the soul at rest must feel. 
Father, we thank thee for a glimpse of Heaven. 



/fo Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



OUT OF TUNE. 

Her heart was over-brimming. 
And the fancies in her brain 

With thought were interweaving 
All their variegated skein. 

She saw the sun uprising 

Through the golden days of June, 
Till the glory rippledover 

All the summer afternoon. 

At eve she saw him pillowed 
On the dusky shores of day, 

On the clouds up-piled in darkness — 
And the glory ebbed away. 

In spring she saw the mountains 
Put their blooming garlands on, 

To woo the soft caresses 
Of the ardent summer sun, 

Then she knew the earth grew warmer 
On a thousand happy farms, 

And from spring it blushed to summer 
In the sun's impassioned arms, 

Till the autumn's chilly fingers 
Froze the blushes on her brow. 

And she lay at last deserted, 
In her bridal robe of snow. 

So all her visions ended 
In a shadow or a tomb, 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 


ii 


And round her brightest fancies 
Lay a border-hne of gloom. 


'T was not her care' or toihng, 
But the weary, vague unrest 

Of a soul whom doubt divideth 
From the Father's loving breast. 




The earth was full of music, 
But her heart was out of tune 

With the sweet poetic rhythm 
Of the golden afternoon. 




For Nature never falters 
In her consecrated song. 

To whose music all the planets 
In their orbits move along. 




But in vain we long and listen, 
And the spirit toils and strives, 

Until we put in harmony 
The key-note of our lives. 




MURDERED DAYS. 




WRITTEN ON NEW YEAR's EVE. 


1 


The Night has put her mourning on, 
And Nature sheds her tears of dew, 

While round the solemn, vaulted sky 
The stars are shining, far and few. 





Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



And now the Moon, repentant, comes 
When all the funeral pomp is done. 

To hold above the grave of Day 
The wasted torches of the Sun. 

The day is dead, and cold, and still, 

The victim of our wanton will. 

The year is dead, and on its brow 

Are scored the furrows of our pain, 
And on its tender bosom still 

The scars of all our sins remain ; 
For every sin must leave a scar. 

Though long has healed the bleeding wound ; 
In all the years that glide away. 

Can any unscarred days be found ? — 
Of this our only hope is born. 
They wait no resurrection morn. 

Yet, ghosts upon the wings of air, 

Our souls shall feel their pinions sweep, 
To trouble, through the dreams of night, 

The quiet waters of our sleep. 
And, ah ! those murdered days may come 

Across our way that leads to God, 
And hanging on our garment's hem 

Detain us long upon the road, 
Till He who trod the way before. 
And waiteth long, has shut the door. 



THE OCEAN CABLE. 

A swift-winged message came across the sea : 
In silent depths the mystic race was run, 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ^j 



Ere yet the winds, that wander far and free, 

Unfurled the damp wings of the morning sun — 
Who rose at last to find his crown was won, 

His ancient crown that never rival wore, 

Won by the lightning with his harness on, — 

Across a track no rival ventures o'er, — 

Beneath the bosom of the deep from shore to shore. 

This is the wedding of the East and West, 
This close communion of divided lands ; 

And children shall "rise up and call them blessed" 
Who o'er this ocean cable join their hands. 

' ' These lines go out through all the earth, " these 
bands 

Unite the world's divided hopes and fears ; 

These are prophetic hours, and Times low sands 

Are dropping out the days, when, sown in tears, 

The world's broad harvest ripens for millennial years. 

This is the miracle of later days, — 

The mind's last triumph o'er material things ; 
We draw the lightning from his cloud-lined ways, 

And bind our thoughts upon his fiery wings. 

Thus all the universe its tribute brings 
To man, who waiteth for his crown and throne ; 

And we, descended from a line of kings. 
Find in all kingdoms subjects for our own ; — 
Our own, which is not yet, till these in wreck are 
strewn. 

Men plan and struggle, but the years fulfill 
Prophetic marches on the destined road ; 

Believing grandly in a finite will, . 

We doubt the wisdom and the power of God ; 



^/j. Poetjy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



E'en o'er the footprints where the Saviour trod 
We plow a furrow through the sea's expanse, 

And lay in faith our deep divining-rod, 
And words go out to Earth's far ends, yet thence 
Bring back to us no echo of omnipotence. 

Ah ! better is the blindest faith, that sees 

Clay is not master of its fellow clay, 
Than doubt, which makes us transient things like 
these, 

Things that live, die, and dying pass away ; — 

Faith tells sublimer things, that we shall sway 
When Death prepares our kingdom : until then. 

We are but kings uncrowned, and watch and pray, 
And gather subjects for the endless reign 
That waits our spirit's short minority of pain. 



"WAR ON THE CONTINENT." 

** War on the Continent ! " rumors abroad 
Of a battle to-day, and there flies on 
The thick sultry air the presage of a storm 
That has broke on the eastern horizon. 

"War on the Continent ! " wherefore and why? 
Is a race or a nation defending 
A right that 's entailed for the ages to come? 
Or is Lust with Ambition contending? 

I listen ; but, catching the echoes that come, 
My blood is not stirred with the story; 

In fancy I hear the loud thunders of war, 
But not a sweet anthem of glory. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ^5 



There 's a string that is silent, a chord that 's un- 
touched, 

That bindeth the nations together — 
The justice that lies with the weakness of one 

At the pitiless feet of the other. 

This chord runs unbroken through distance and time ; 

In hurranity's ear its vibrations 
Make ours, through the centuries covered with dust, 

The sorrows and triumphs of nations. 

*' War on the Continent ! " Kings in unrest. 

Solving the problem of sages, 
That never was solved and that never shall be. 

Till we halt in the march of the ages 

And bury the dead that encumber the train 
With things that are broken and hoary. 

Yet rule with their sceptres of iron, that bar 
The wide-open gateway of glory. 

The problem shall vex, while the world shall grow old, 

And power be unbalanced forever; 
While Ambition upholds it, and Justice shall hang 

On the opposite arm of the lever. 

** War on the Continent! " Kingdoms and kings, 

Forsaking the gold for the gilding, 
With their perishing arms, in the shadow of Death, 

Their thrones of dominion upholding. 

They will borrow to-day of the ages to come 
A strength, and be poorer to-morrow 

For the loan in the blood of their children consumed, 
And the terrible usury, sorrow. 



^6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Ah ! when will the half-blinded vision of men 
Grow tired of these blood-written pages, 

And read in the light of the sunset of time, 
There are thrones in the heart of the ages. 

There are thrones that are vacant, and kingdoms to 
come; 

And the ranks of Humanity standing 
On the hills of To-day, as they form into line, 

The plains of the world are commanding. 

With an infinite faith in the kingdom to be, 
They are watching the fast-closing suture 

In the brow of the promise that 's born in our time, 
To inherit the crown of the Future. 

When Authority sits in the lawgiver's seat. 

And Truth shall be Lord of Opinion, 
The Right, which is older than kingdoms and kings, 

Shall trample the thrones of Dominion. 



THE DEATH MYSTERY. 

Dying, all haloed round with faith, 

Calm, beautiful she lay, 
With sleepless eyes, whose vision caught 

Gleams of eternal day. 
She saw the lights of heaven grow bright 

O'er ways her feet must climb. 
And calmly waited for the end 

Of earth, and change, and time. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 4.^ 



And so the heedless sunshod days, 

All smihng-, hastened down 
To where the eves in splendor wore 

Their purple-golden crown ; 
But day by day those tireless eyes. 

Beyond the paths we trod, 
Transfigured by a light divine, 

Seemed growing nearer God. 

Some souls above their crumbling clay 

Can in the shadow stand, 
And clasp across Life's breaking threads 

The Father's outstretched hand. 
These feel before they reach the shore 

The tide of Life set in. 
And ere the finite ebbs away 

The infinite begin. 

So once this pair of dying eyes — 

By God's own angel sealed 
For Life Eternal — even here 

This mystery revealed : 
That death is not a slumber, where 

Our being falls apart, 
Wrapt in the vague, dim mists, that lie 

Like dreams around the heart. 

She left — and Heaven seemed far and dim. 

And mists on mists arise ; 
But naught can cloud the memory of 

Those glory-lighted eyes. 
Set in the midnight sky of death. 

Like beacon stars they shone. 
And in my dreams of Heaven to-night 

They still are shining on. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Btitler. 



Ah ! if such quenchless rays of hght 

Flash out from dying eyes, 
How can the spirit slumber while 

The clay robe folded lies — 
Sleep on till the Redeemer comes 

To claim Earth's solemn trust, 
And with His breath to re-create 

Our bodies from the dust ? 

When not a star that sets at dawn 

In slumber veils its light, 
And never sun at sunset hour 

Sleeps on the couch of night ; 
How can the soul, a breath of God, 

Fold up its restless wings. 
And slumber at the door of Heaven, 

With grave-bound mortal things? 

For soul to slumber, is to die : 

No passive life is known — 
God's orbit is the universe, 

Its centre is His throne: 
Our souls, which are a spark of God, 

Can ne'er be slumber-bound ; 
In lesser orbits they but turn 

The everlasting round. 



THE MINISTER'S PROBLEM. 

The Minister sat in his easy chair, 
The sunshine played in his faded hair,- 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ^g 



Where the snows of Hfe were falHng fast, 
O'er the track of the golden summers past. 

The sun, descending behind the hill, 
Cast a gleam aslant o'er the window-sill. 

It quivered and fell on the open book, 
Like a finger beck'ning to rise and look ; — 

And the page grew bright that was dull before. 
But he moved, and, abashed, it sought the floor. 

Still he followed the author's "proofs of God," 
With his weary brain's theological plod ; — 

He read till the arguments deeper grew. 
And the lines on his forehead deepened too ; 

But the lines that crossed and furrowed his face 
Were not half so tangled and hard to trace. 

A half-grown form in the parsonage door 
Cast a full grown shadow across the floor. 

The father's form and the shadow grim 
In picture blended, vague and dim ; 

A likeness at once and a prophecy, — 
For the father was as the boy would be 

When a growth in all but his faith and joy 
Had inwrought its marvels to change the boy. 

Now the child stood up where the sunset bright 
Flung o'er him a mantle of golden light; 



JO Poetry and Prose of Majae R. Butler. 



And a beautiful faith, unstained and wild, 
Flowed over the lips of the beautiful child : 

"O Father, I know that the clouds must lie 
Nearer to heaven than you and I ; — 

"For, oh! see — they catch in each purple fold. 
The light that comes down from the streets of gold. 

"It is not the light of the setting sun. 

Or his backward smile o'er his journey done ; 

" For his light comes down o'er the garden wall 
On you, and the roses, and in the hall ; 

' ' But no light from heaven is shining through, 
O'er the garden wall, and the flowers, and you. 

"And if we look down, we can not see, even 
The light that flows over the threshold of Heaven. 

"Yet if we were up in the changing sky, 
We might look into heaven — you and I. 

' ' For looking upward we see the shine 
The angels hang out for a golden sign. 

"I 've been watching the clouds in the purple air. 
For I know that the home of God is there. 

' ' How strange it is that man ever can doubt 
When the evening glory its sign hangs out! " 

The father looked up, and a vision bright 
Fell over the sunbeam's line of light ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 5/ 



The radiant sky and the clouds were riven 
By a golden bridge from the earth to heaven. 

He was here alone, and in heaven was God, 
And just half-way over his darling stood. 

On the golden bridge, o'er the vast abyss 
That divides the eternal world from this. 

A terrible pain like a swift eclipse 
Passed over the minister's brow and lips. 

The boy stood up in the parsonage door, 
But he cast no shadow across the floor. 

The sunbeam that fell like a golden rod 
To the earth from the palace-home of God, 

No longer quivered beside his chair, 
But it left the light of its presence there. 

He severed at once the tangled skein 
Whose threads had wearied his aching brain. 

When next the Lord's day evening came, 
And flooded the chapel aisles with flame — 

When "the heavens declared the glory of God, " 
He followed the shining sunbeam's rod 

Up the slanting bridge to the dying sun. 
Whose Lord's-day journey was almost done. 

And cried, " O Father, we iiever can doubt 
Wke?t the evening glory its sign hangs out." 



§2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Then a ship of prayer through the summer even 
Sailed over the shoals of doubt to Heaven, 

And anchored there with a great Amen, 
That rolled up o'er the golden bridge again. 



IMMANUEL. 

His Is the power sublime 
That filled eternity and boundless space; 

Before creation at the birth of Time. 
Beheld His radiant face. 

His is the power supreme 
That o'er the chaos of eternal night 

All smiling looked, and like a sun-lit dream 
Creation woke to light. 

His is the wondrous power 
That breathed the soul-light into forms of clay ; 

To shine forever from that glorious hour, — 
Lamps of immortal ray. 

His loving, watchful eye, 
Looked down in pity while the angels wept ; 

When man — God's image — taught by sin to die, 
In earth's dark bosom slept. 

But when the earth grew dim, 
Dark with the shadow of its many graves ; 

And souls went hopeless through the shadows grim, 
O'er Death's unsounded waves — 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 5j 



His was the soul of love 
That stooped in pity from His shining throne ; 

Left the bright angels and the bliss above, 
To suffer here alone ; 

To suffer and to die, 
Meekly descending to the shrouded tomb ; 

Where generations of the years gone by 
Slept in mysterious gloom. 

His was the mighty hand. 
That swept the shadows from the grave away, 

And lit the portals of the spirit-land 
With Hope's undying ray. 

And many a tear-dimmed eye. 
Grows bright and brighter with each graveward view ; 

Till at the door they lay their burdens by, 
And pass with angels through. 

Far in the future lies 
An hour, when golden suns shall cease to burn ; 

And when the tear-stained earth and smiling skies 
To chaos shall return. 

But when that hour shall be, 
When time and all earth's monuments in wreck 

Float darkly out upon eternity, 
A dimly fading speck ; 

When suns and stars are fled, 
And all the Universe waits dark and lone ; 

When in his shroud e'en Death at last lies dead 
Beside his crumbled throne ; 



5^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



The souls with Christ who trod 
Through weary suffering to perfection on, 

Shall gem with holy light the realms of God, 
Like stars set round the sun. 



ICONOCLASM. 

I have heard of storied columns, 

Standing in some eastern clime, 
Telling, in a language solemn, 

Of a far-off olden time. 
When fair temples rose in splendor. 

Mocking with their columned stone 
Time, that lightly touched and left them 

In their grandeur, proud and lone, 

Deeming only God could shake them. 

In His solemn anger, down ; 
Time,, his footprints left and passed them 

With a murmur and a frown ; 
And the name of God was echoed 

In a mocking tone, and spurned, 
While the incense of devotion 

On an idol's altar burned. 

So God left them in their blindness. 

And the face of heaven grew dim, 
While the smoke of burning incense 

Rose in mockery to Him. 
How they crowned insensate idols. 

All but legend has forgot; 
What their faith and worship promised, 

Even legend answers not. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 55 



Not your temples God has shattered. 

Not your altars in His wrath, 
But your holiest things, your idols, 

He has crumbled in His path ; 
But your temples, weak profaners. 

Reared defiant o'er their head, 
Stand like broken mausoleums, 

O'er a worship lying dead. 

Dead the idols and their worship, 

Dead the toilers and their trust ; 
And no worshipers come after, 

For their gods were only dust. 
Like the "Wandering Jew," their temples 

Through the lonely centuries stand, 
Strange and hoary — unforgiven, 

Like a shadow on the land. 

But that God whom we have worshiped 

Shall be v/orthy of our trust . 
When the temples we have builded 

Shall have moldered into dust; 
When the walls forget the echoes 

Of our prayers, like incense given. 
And the altars are remembered 

But as stepping-stones to Heaven. 



THE SHIPS OF LIFE. 

When, standing on the shores of time. 
We seaward bend our eyes. 

How many fair, love-freighted ships 
On our rapt vision rise ! 



^6 Poetry ajid Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



How much of joy they bear away; 

How much of love they hold ; 
How much of sunlight from the earth, 

Those shining sails enfold ! 

While we upon the busy shore 

Are standing day by day, 
Those heaven-bound ships, with gleaming sails, 

Our treasures bear away. 
With eager eyes we follow them ; 

And some go down in sight: 
These are the hopes which could not bloom 
■ In Heaven's unclouded light. 

Some vain ambition, selfish love 

Is lost, or worldly pride ; 
And so, although we mourn them dead, 

'T is well when they have died. 
Some barks glide on, as if from God 

A charmed life were given : 
These bear the treasures that we know 

Shall all be ours in Heaven. 

For all the ships of life go out. 

And all are heavenward bound, 
Save here and there a white-winged bark, 

With glory circled round. 
And these bear little heaven-born souls, 

The Father evermore 
Sends floating down the waves of life. 

To anchor on the shore. 

Some ships go out as stars go down. 
And shroud our souls in nisrht: 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ^y 



These bear our precious ones away, 
Our love-lamps from our sight. 

Yet though their light is hid from us, 
As stars grow dim awhile, 

We know the boundless fields of heaven 
Are lighted by their smile. 

How dear, how beautiful they look, 

When fair beloved hands 
Wave the last signal to depart 

For the eternal lands ! 
**Fear not, fear not that we are lost," 

Their smiling seems to say ; 
*'For, from the shores of time, we bear 

No earth-born things away. 

**With eager hands, in holy trust. 

Our farewell signal 's given ; 
We leave the shores of Time, to seek 

The golden port of Heaven. 
Our sails unfurled, the breezes blow, 

We may not look behind ; 
For faith is standing at the bow, 

And God is in the wind." 



THREE PICTURES OF FAITH. 

I saw a pure child, in whose beautiful eyes 

Were blended the gleam and the blue of the skies, 

When Sin, the dark angel of sorrow and blight. 

Wearing the crown of an angel of light. 

Tempted the child by the paradise gleams 

Of bright blooming gardens and murmuring streams- 



S8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Gardens with bloom of the deadliest breath, 

And streams whose dark waters flowed downward to 

death. 
But light from our Father was shed on the way, 
Ere the dear little pilgrim had wandered astray ; 
His lips to his heart spoke an answer to prayer : 
"I see not Thy face, but I know Thou art there." 

I saw a lone pilgrim, who gazed with distrust 
On all things : his idols had crumbled to dust ; 
And the slow wheels of Time had relentlessly rolled 
O'er his heart's broken altars, where passion grew 

cold; 
And o'er the smooth brow the deep wheel-ruts were 

worn, 
That tell of a spirit dark passions have torn. 
So the soul sat in darkness, and ashes, and gloom, 
As the high-priest of Ruin might dwell in a tomb ; 
Till leaving the wrecks that God's mercy had strewn, 
The lone-drifting dreamer looked up to the Throne ; 
Then down through the dark came an answer to 

prayer, 
And the soul cried aloud — "Thou art there. Thou 

art there." 

I saw a lone pilgrim, slow wending his way 
Through the deepening twilight of evening gray ; 
For long the tired feet had been turned to the west, 
And the world-weary spirit was seeking for rest. 
Where far in the distance Life's sun goeth down, 
An angel was bearing a robe and a crown. 
He flings off his garment of sackcloth and dust, 
From his eyes fall the scales, from his spirit the rust ; 
For a moment, transfigured, he stood in my sight, 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jp 



Then passed through the wide open doorway of 

Light : 
And a whisper came down through the glorified air, 
" My God and my Saviour, I know Thou art there." 



.*'IN MEMORIAM." 

(my sister died NOVEMBER 1ST, 1860.) 

Another Sunbeam gone from earth; 

Another Star declined ; , 

Another Love-bud called to be 

In Christ's own garland twined; 

Another Eye has softly shut 
Its blue-veined curtain down; 

Another Soul has left its cross. 
To wear in heaven a crown ; 

Another Flower, Its love-cup filled. 
Folds all its sweetness in; 

Another Soul is born in heaven, 
Without a spot of sin ; 

Once more the crystal gates of light 
Have shut an Angel in. 



AT THE AID SOCIETY. 

Fold them up, they are warm and soft 

As the delicate knitter's heart and hand — 



6o Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



A pair of soft, blue woolen socks, 
And love knit in with every strand. 

More than this — there are* dreams and prayers 
Wove in like a mystic, golden thread — 

Dreams that may stir a soldier's heart, 
And prayers to bless a dying head. 

It is not vain, it is not vain, 

For love is blest, and prayer Is strong, 
To move the Arm that surely guides 

The breasts that stem the tide of wrong. 

And those who praying still believe, 

Shall know the strength of human will ; 

They dream prophetic histories. 

And through their faith their hopes fulfill. 



PARTNERSHIP. 

"We are but two, a little band; 
Be faithful till we die ; 
Shoulder to shoulder let us stand. 

Till side by side we lie." — Wordsworth. 

But now, O miracles of love ! 

Two added, we are four — 
In earth or heaven, ours or God's 

May these be evermore. 

In partnership with Him we bend 
These new-born souls above, 

And tremblingly the contract sign 
Whose only bonds are love. 



Poetry and Pj^ose of Marie R. Butler. 6i 



Then creature and Creator fold 

Alike this tender clay — 
One, to sustain us all ; and two. 

To guard them day by day. 

O human love, on which is hung 

God's vast, eternal plan ! 
O love creative, shadowed in 

The finite love of man ! 

Both forge the glowing links of Life 

And weld a chain sublime, 
The only finite, endless thing — 

Eternal, born in Time. 

O wisdom of the heart of God, 

That for a signal still 
Keeps through all wrecks, this golden string 

Unbroken as his will — 

The chain of love, that holds alike 

The living and the dead. 
And runs through all the universe, 

The only vital thread. 



AN ACRE OF GRAVES. 

Kentucky river, winding by 

A forest-guarded bank, 
And stalwart trees that mutely stand, 

Like grenadiers in rank ; 



62 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



While flinging solemn shadows o'er 

The river's tranquil flow, 
They keep, through ages, patient guard 

Upon the clifls below — 

Those towering clifls, where eagles build, 

And man has never trod — 
Where only soaring wings can touch 

The finger-prints of God ; 
Where Nature stretches in repose, 

Or sits in holy calm, 
Teaching the sighing winds to chant 

Their sweet thanksgiving psalm. 

And when the morning sun is low, 

Deep shadows, long and wide, 
Stretch fl"om the forest-guarded clifls, 

Like bridges on the tide. 
O'er which the first bright sunbeams come 

Like couriers sent before. 
To tell the rushes on the bank 

The sun will soon be o'er. 

A rising hill, a grassy plain, 

Below the river's sweep. 
And silent trees that guard the place 

Where willows bend and weep ; 
And fields of golden-tasselled corn 

Fill up the perfect plan, 
To show how kindly Nature works 

In partnership with Man. 

Yet still the willows bend and weep, 
As if a grave were there ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 6j 



Though not a sound or shadow stirs 
The pulses of the air, 

Some dark and thrilling tragedy- 
Is borne upon the flood, 

And e'en these placid waters tell 
Of human strife and blood. 

And here beneath these cliffs, that bare 

Their foreheads to the west. 
Long billowy lines of sods are laid, 

Each on a soldier's breast: 
So fair Kentucky's war-worn face 

Is dotted o'er with stains ; 
Not all the dews of heaven can cleanse 

The blue-grass of her plains. 



DESOLATION. 

Soul, wrap around thee thy garments of gloom, 
Lay my dead heart in its desolate tomb ; 
Still'd are its throbbings, quiet at last, 
Lethe, flow over my dreams of the past. 

Strange now how passionless Memory seems. 
While thought travels over the graves of her dreams ; 
But, O Desolation, my hope and my trust 
Lie buried, with pain, in thy ashes and dust. 

Alas, how the soul stills its pulses of fire. 
Where the flames at the fountain grow cold and ex- 
pire ! 
Alas, that the heart with its music should die ; 
Its echo forever be only a sigh ! 



6^ Poetry and Pilose of Marie R. Butler. 



But, O Desolation, thy mission is blest : 
Fold thy calm wings o'er my spirit's unrest; 
And help me to learn a great lesson of thee — 
Before resurrection, the dying must be. 

Faith, move the last doubt by thy heavenly art ; 
Roll, roll back the stone from the grave of my heart : 
My soul waits in hope till a voice at the tomb 
Shall proclaim that the heart's resurrection has come. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 

Struck like a towering English oak, 
Shivered with all its leaves unfurled ; 

And the sharp report of the lightning stroke 
Wakes an echo round the world. 

From lip to lip, on the English coast. 
Flies the news of a nation's loss ; 

And, proud to think they love him most, 
They signal o'er the deep to us. 

We catch their message o'er the wave. 
We see their half-mast banners play, 

And pause to think hqw much the grave 
Has taken from the world to-day. 

The heart that sleeps in calm repose, 
Sprung like an acorn from the soil, 

A giant in the sunshine rose, 
Above the grirny ways of toil. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 6 



'J 



But deep in human nature's heart, 
His roots still found the vital springs 

That form of all his leaves a part, 
Expanding into wondrous things. 

And long he stood a verdant tree, 
With heart of solid English oak, 

A champion for humanity 

Wherever Saxon words are spoke. 

And in the future still he stands ; 

Words are immortal — good or ill — 
And he upon Time's drifted sands 

Leaves the impressions of his will. 

A heart that loved his age and race 
Too well to shun the noble strife. 

And fossilize, for men to trace, 

Unrighted wrongs and trampled life. 

Around the world a murmur flies, 
And leaflets from the giant tree 

Are gathered — now the hero dies — 
Mementoes for Humanity. 



O BRIGHT AND SILENT SUN ! 

O bright and silent sun ! 
What are the memories of sad days to thee. 
When o'er the path thy golden feet have run? 

The shadows were for me. 



66 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



How can thy radiant eye 
Conceive the picture of a world in night, • 

When amber couriers, hke a vanguard fly, 

To make thy pathway bright ! 

A long horizon line, 
Like a grand army with its flags unfurled. 
Blazes with glory as thy dazzling shine 

Goes round and round the world. 

O gleaming waves of light, 
Whose daily tides through seas of ether roll. 
Ye sweep o'er worlds of chaos and of night. 

And break upon my soul. 

Upon this soul of mine 
Ye scatter pearls of wisdom, and I see 
Lives that have light within them still must shine 

Through hours that darkest be. 

With them no shadows frown ; 
They die like sunset as they lived like day ; 
And after them the solemn night comes down, 

And earth grows cold and gray. 

But just beyond the hills, 
Whose summits rise upon the edge of Time, 
Their soul's eternal sunrise breaks — and thrills 

To-morrow's fairer clime. 

O bright and silent sun ! 
Like thee I journey to the distant west. 
And when my mission and my toil are done. 

Like thee I sink to rest. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. dy 



But when I rise again, 
God's Heaven city shall be builded on 
Thy broken orbit — shall I miss thee then? 
"There shall be no more sun ! " 



THE BRIDGE. 

How far, far away from us Heaven must He, 

When the light from some stars in the measureless 

sky , 
Traveled millions on millions of miles in its flight, 
And was thousands of years ere it burst on our sight. 

If we set out for heaven to-day, and could fly 

On the wings of the wind through the path of the 

sky — 
If we never grew weary, and never grew old, 
How long it would take us could never be told. 

We should flash by the planets, and Venus and Mars 
Would be lost to our sight in the field of the stars ; 
We should flash by the sun and pass out of his light, 
And the gateway of Heaven be still out of sight. 

For farther from us than the stars, we are told, 
Is the city of God, with its pavements of gold — 
A world might be born and grow old in the time 
That a spirit could pass to that beautiful clime. 

It might be a wonderful journey, I know. 
With the azure above us, the planets below ; 
But, oh ! how impatient at last I should be. 
Lest the angels should weary of waiting for me — 



68 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Lest I should be lost when I parted from you, 

And never be found in that desert of blue, 

And my heart would grow sick with such terrible 

fears 
That I could not endure it for thousands of years. 

Ah ! poor little dreamer, you are not alone 
In dreading the way that leads up to the throne ; 
'T was a journey of ages, but shortened since then 
By a bridge that was built for the children of men. 

And over the bridge pass the good and the true ; 
And the rest are all lost in that desert of blue. 
'T is wide as the world is, and firm as the sod ; 
For this bridge is the love and the promise of God. 



LOST. 



Lost in the morning, and wandered away, 

Gone with the day that is ending, 
A beautiful child ; and the incoming night 

Finds a shadow already impending. 
Eyes have grown weary, and cheeks have been wet ; 
Prayers have been offered in agony ; yet, 
Did you pass by it, and could you forget 

It was lost, lost? 

You knew when you passed it alone, on the street. 
That you passed it forever and ever. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 6g 



Gone, you, and the child, and the spot, and the hour, 

With the need that had brought 3^ou together, 
Converging one moment, diverging again, 
Yet, crossing your heart, left a burden of pain 
That sometime and somewhere will meet you again. 

Not be lost, lost. 

Lost in the midnight to you and the world, 

Down into infamy sinking; 
'T was yours, but your love had forgotten, and now — 

God pity the dregs you are drinking. 
You pray, but you think where the guilty one trod. 
And you know that the love and the promise of God 
Will never reach under the earth and the sod 

For the lost, lost. 

Lost in the morning, at noon and at eve, 

Things that the angels are finding. 
Bits of self-sacrifice, tangles of love 

That angels are patiently winding. 
Exalted ideals, that might have been true 
Had we been stronger to will and to do, 
Are silently gathered and hidden from view, 

But not lost, lost. 

Lost in the dark, on the edge of the grave, 

A deed to a mansion in heaven, 
Paid for in gold that was wrung from the poor — 

And then to a charity given ; 
Souls that forgive not — a life that was grand, 
A love and a purpose — all built on the sand, 
With a prayer that went up with no deed in its hand : 

These are lost, lost. 



yo Poetry and Pilose of Mai^ie R. Butler. 



LINES ON THE DEATH OF A THEOLOGI- 
CAL STUDENT. 

J. T. KiRBY died at his residence near Germantown, N. C, De- 
cember, 1869, of disease contracted while struggling to get the 
means to prepare himself to "preach the word." 

INSCRIBED TO HIS CLASS IN THE BIBLE COLLEGE OF 
KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY. 

Ah ! think not he died ere his labor was done, 
Though he died ere he tasted its sweetness. 

For result is the crown of a victory won, 
That descends on its perfect completeness. 

Some lead the "advance" in the battle of Life, 
And fall 'neath the flag they fight under, 

And some through the heat and the smoke of the 
strife, 
Reach the Patinos of age, where they wonder 

Why they should have lived till the angels came 
down, 

And lift, with unpalpable fingers. 
The veil that must fall 'tween the cross and the crown, 

While the soul with mortality lingers. 

But not unto us as we toil in our day 

Is given this glorified vision. 
And some never toil through the heat of the day. 

Who bear the divinest commission. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. yi 



The * ' Voice in the Wilderness ' ' hushed in its prime, 

Completed its grandest idea, 
And hves in the measureless echoes of Time, ^ 

That float out from the plains of Judsea. 

And yet /le went out ere the heroes came on — 
Died ere the * ' Commission ' ' was given ; 

And before he was crowned with a victory won, 
He sat down in the kingdom of heaven. 

You weep for the one who has gone from your sight, 
Has fall'n from the ranks, and you number 

One less to go forth where the harvest is white, 
And one more to lie passive in slumber. 

Like Paul, in the ' ' excellent glory ' ' he stands, 
While j/^z^, " in the ranks," are believing, 

His faith into knowledge divinely expands, 
And calls you to grander achieving. 

Think not you have lost what you silently weep ; 

But look up through the clouds that hang o'er you. 
The brother you thought had gone early to sleep. 

Is made an apostle* before j^z/;. 



LOVE'S CROSSES. 

TO ISAAC AND HARRIET ERRETT. 

WiCKLiFFE Campbell Errett — Fallen asleep, March iStli, 1872. 
" His short record was all honorable." 

The life that you loved into being has fled — 
The lips that you kissed into sweetness are dead. 

-;■:- ii J ^jgQ ^]-|^ g^j^ apostle, an eye-witness to his glory." 



J 2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



The heart in whose pulses you counted your own, 
And molded for years with a look or a tone, 

Untouched by your sighing, 

Unmoved by your crying. 
Has tasted the pain and the sweetness of dying. 

You were watching, and saw when the curtain was 

drawn. 
And the soul that awoke in the Heavenly dawn. 
And the arm you stretched out, as he passed from 

your sight, 
Was caught by a ray of the Heavenly light. 
Very near to the door 
Do we stand, in the hour 
When our children pass by us and enter before. 

Ah ! we may be purer — but think of the years 
When we shaped them with love and baptized them 

in tears — 
They who should live after to conquer our pain. 
And recover our losses by aid of our gain. 

And wiser and younger, 

And better and stronger. 
Take the burden of life when we bear it no longer : 

To wear all our virtues like jewels reset. 
To redeem all our failures, our errors forget ; 
And step from our shoulders to heights more sub- 
lime 
Than ever our feet have been able to climb : 

What sorrows we wear. 

What crosses we bear. 
When they leave us alone in the valley of prayer ! 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. J^ 



But his soul was unstained, and his record all pure : 
Would you lay your cross on him to do and endure ? 
Though he stood ''in the line of promotion" un- 

scajTcd, 
Would you stay ''his commission " that came from the 
Lord? 
With nothing for fears, 
Is there matter for tears 
That for him is bridged over the anguish of years ? 

You only can hope, when an angel is sent 
To unbuckle your armor and fold up your tent. 
At the foot of the ladder he mounted, to stand 
And touch in the dark an omnipotent hand : 

You weaker and sadder. 

He wiser and gladder — 
Between you the rounds of Death's mystical ladder. 

We are glad when our babes have come safely to earth 
Through the perils and pangs and the rapture of 

birth. 
As we felt in the hour when they opened their eyes. 
Let us feel when again they are born in the skies ; 

And year after year 

Draw near and more near. 
Till Heaven may be seen through the lens of a tear. 

Oh ! stretch out your arms o'er the grave and the sod, 
And lay what you have on the bosom of God. 
Draw nearer and nearer ; the veil is so thin. 
Love makes it transparent and gazes within. 

Love hath no denials ; 

Its crosses and trials 
Mark ages of bliss on its Heavenly dials. 



y^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



MY PRAYER. 



"Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in 
thy holy hill ? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteous- 
ness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. . , . He that doeth those 
things shall never be moved." — Psalm xv. 

O Father, when I hft my eyes 

Above the grime around, 
And steadfast hold my empty cup 

Where naught but peace is found ; 

Although my faith may only seem 

An atom lost in space, 
O Father, give it strength of wing 

And it will find thy face. 

My heart is like the ark of old, 

Filled with its teeming things ; 
My faith its slow-winged dove, sent out 

To fly on weary wings. 

It halts beside thine altar. Lord, 

And sees uplifted there 
Hands that are false and hearts where hate 

Has left no room for prayer — • 

Sees souls ignobly bow to sense, 

And Truth weep over them, 
While even in thy " Holy Place" 

Is stained her garment's hem. 

So up and down the world it goes. 
Above the floods of sin — 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ^5 



My trembling faith — Lord, stretch thy hand 
And take the wanderer in. 

Though but an atom lost in space, 

My faith but dreams of rest ; 
Lord, wing it with thy promises 

And guide it to thy breast. 

But as of old the mountains raised 

Their summits from the flood, 
In this broad world of evil, still 

I know there must be good. 

And still my soul and purblind faith 

Are clinging to thy hand ; 
Amid the wreck of truth I see, 

But can not understand. 

My faith expectant looks to Thee ; 

My will and purpose wait, 
Or mingle in thy hollow hand, 

To weave the threads of fate. 



Lord, let my strong foundation be 

My everlasting trust, 
And help me that I build thereon 

With all things true and just. 

My slender fingers, Lord, I know. 

Sufficient are to do ; 
If we would be omnipotent, 

We only need be true. 



y6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



On truth, where angels rest their feet, 
Lord, let me stand, and know, 

By loving him, how much like God 
A human soul may grow. 



THE LITTLE SOWER'S PRIZE POEM. 

Sixty-seven manuscripts were received as competitors for the prize 
offered by the Little Sower for the best poem received before Decem- 
ber I, 1869. On that day tlie manuscripts were submitted to a com- 
mittee consisting of Rev. Edward P. Ingersoll, Pastor of the Plym- 
outh Congregational Church, and Elder William F. Black, Pastor of 
the Christian Church. On the l8th day of December they submitted 
tlie following 



The undersigned, selected as a committee to pass our judgment 
upon the poems competing for the prize of $25 offered by W. W. 
Dowling, Editor of the Little Sowe7', beg leave to report that we have 
carefully examined the manuscripts submitted, and have decided 
that the prize should be awarded to the writer of the poem entitled 
"The Golden Ladder." 

Edward P. Ingersoll, 
William F. Black. 
Indianapolis, Dec. i8th, 1869. 

THE GOLDEN LADDER. 

The children watched the sun go down, 

And in its gleaming changes, 
The west seemed first a sea of fire, 

Then golden mountain ranges. 

And Fannie asked, "What are the clouds? 
They look like hills of glory. " 
"The steps of heaven," Frank replied; 
"It is a sweet, old story: 



Poetry and Pivse of Marie R. Butler. jy 



' ' A guardian angel every day, 

To each of us is given ; 
And everything we do or say 

They carry up to Heaven. 

"When we do wrong they write with tears; 

When good, their hearts are gladder; 
And every night they climb to Heaven 

Up o'er that golden ladder. 

*' And then the gates of pearl swing back 

Upon their gleaming hinges, 
And all the sky seems melted gold, 

With red and purple fringes. 

"But when the doors are closed again, 

The guardian angels gather 
In solemn silence, with their books. 

Around our Heavenly Father. 

"And then I close my eyes and think 

How, in that sinless dwelling. 
Will sound the story of the life 

My angel must be telling. 

"Some days, I know, my angel takes 

The record of my sinning ; 
But then I always try to make 

The next a new beginning. 

"So, when at night our Father calls. 

My angel may be gladder. 
And be the first to climb to Heaven 

Up o'er the golden ladder." 



yS Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler, 



LITTLE QUARRELS. 

The children had come home from school, 

And played an hour or more ; 
And now the hour had come to look 

To-morrow's lesson o'er. 
But still the mirthful spirit ruled, 

And wished a longer sway; 
For all the children were too tired 

For anything but play. 

They sat around the merry hearth, 
The fire was burning bright ; 

And some one said, "Oh ! let us ask 
A \\.o\\day to-night.'^ 

"A holiday/ why this is night,''^ 
Cried out a voice in fun ; 

As if she thought a world of mirth 
' Was in the little pun. 

"Well, day is night, and night is day," 

A harsher voice replied. 
With just a httle tinge of wrath. 

And just a little pride. 
' ' Well, I have heard that black is white, 

But never thought it so ; 
'T is painful to be ignorant 

Of things we ought to know. 

"And I propose that we should sit 
And learn of Lady May, 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. Jg 



Till we are wise enough, at least, 

To prove that night is day." 
The little joker's fun was gone, 

Her laugh to tears was turned ; 
As if, in picking up a joke, 

She found her fingers burned. 

Then in the circle round the fire 

The mother's chair was set; 
And in those little angry eyes 

She looked with deep regret: 
*' My children, men h.diVefotigkt for words- 

A God of love to please. 
By breaking hearts and taking lives 

For idle words like these. 

"For, standing by, I heard it all, 

And think you both were right; 
For in the measurement of Time, 

We do not speak of night. 
And yet we call the dark hours night ; 

But such a slight mistake 
Was hardly worth the angry words 

And aching hearts you make. 

*' And even jokes are sometimes wrong, 

Unless the wit is kind ; 
The merriest laughs may sever hearts 

Repentance can not bind. 
If God should send a judgment on 

Each error that we make, 
The best of all our lives would be 

One terrible m.istake. " 



8o Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



OUR CHILDREN. 

When they come in helpless beauty 

From the home of God afar, 
With His seal upon their foreheads, 

Oh, how sweet the children are ! 
There 's a softer air about them, 

And a hush around them lies, 
And the secret of creation 

In their deep, unshadowed eyes ; 
In their forms so sweetly moulded, 
God's eternal life is folded. 

Looking through those radiant lenses, 

Down converging aisles of Time, 
We can see the first creation, 

And its miracles sublime. 
We can see the great All-Father 

On Creation's threshold stand, 
All the shining spheres uplifting 

With the lever of His hand ; 
Breath of His eternal Spirit 
Is the life that we inherit. 

Through the doorway of creation, 

On the threshold of our birth, 
Come these pure and sinless spirits, 

Down the azure stairs to earth. 
There 's a softer air about them. 

And a glory round them lies. 
And the secret of creation 

In their deep, unshadowed eyes ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. Si 



For the soul, unconscious seeming, 
Of its heavenly birth is dreaming. 

Never higher than the fountain 

Can the limpid waters flow ; 
But the restless waves forever 

Seek a level as they go. 
Naught can bind resistless water, 

Naught can stay the restless tide, 
Rising ever to the fountain 

In the channel's rocky side ; 
So our spirit's restless river 

Seeks the level of its Giver. 

Radiant Children ! they are linking 

God's eternal life with man's ; 
And this "silver cord" upholdeth 

All his everlasting plans. 
May the restless waves of being. 

In their tidal ebb and flow, 
Reach their fountain when the golden 

Bowl is broken here below. 
May their calm eyes be the token 
When the wheel of life is broken. 



GRANDFATHER. 

Grandfather 's old, and his children said 
That seventy winters have whitened his head ; 
But we think that seventy summers' skies 
Have left their sunshine in grandfather's eyes; 
And the sunny light of them all appears 
When grandfather speaks of his seventy years. 



82 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



While his form is withered and bent and thin, 

His dear old heart is all warm within ; 

And you see where the smiles have left their trace. 

In the lines that wrinkle his dear old face ; 

Could you only hear the tales he has told, 

You would think it was grand to be growing old. 

Grandfather's life has not always been 
Free from sorrow and toil and sin ; 
He had his troubles, and bore them too, 
And the One helped him who is helping you ; 
He toiled for knowledge, and fought for truth. 
And kept for his age the heart of his youth. 

We love his tales of the long-ago, 

For grandfather's stories are true, we know. 

We shout when he tells how, in sorest need, 

He fought the giant of selfish greed, 

And on through his boyhood and youth and prime, 

Ran wonderful races with Life and Time. 

Grandfather 's happy and wise and good, 

Yet he 's not done all that he thought he would 

When he dreamed and planned what his life should be, 

Before he was grandpa, and we were we ; 

But life is not made of such wonderful things, 

And the best men of earth are not heroes and kings. 

Grandfather never was rich, but you see 

He divided with friends who were poorer than he ; 

When you ask about money, he '11 tell you he 's lent 

A fortune so large it can never be spent. 

He means it is lent to the Lord, but I 'm sure 

It was used to buy Bibles and food for the poor. 



Poetry and Pilose of Marie R. Butler. 8j 



Grandfather says that his old eyes are dim, 
And we know that the angels are waiting for him ; 
But the children will cry with their bitterest pain 
When he leaves his arm-chair and his hat and his 

cane, 
And starts out to seek, with an angel to guide, 
His mansion that 's built where his treasures abide. 

And we know he will find it ; but oh, if he should ! 
With no grandpa to help us, how can we be good? 
But he tells us he learned, through his seventy years. 
We only grow better with striving and tears ; 
We shall not reach heaven with wishes or wings, 
But climb up on stairs of the commonest things. 



GRANDMOTHER. 

The old lady sat in her easy chair. 

With her head leaning back and her feet in the sun ; 
And you knew by the shine of her snow-white hair 

That grandmother's work was almost done. 

In her lap lay a stocking of white and red. 
Grandmother's knitting, but now complete ; 

And its mate on the floor was the kitten's bed. 
Where puss in the sunshine lay curled at her feet. 

She loved the kittens and loved the sun. 

And smiled when the kitten unwound her ball; 

Yet she counted the minutes one by one. 

Till the children came running along the hall. 



84- Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Then she gathered the stockings from off her lap, 
And smiled to welcome the children home ; 

And even the kitten forgot her nap, 

For she knew that the kissing-time had come. 

They are grandmother's children — she told us so — 
Grandmother's children to love and to teach ; 

And I think she is right, for years ago 
She gave a place in her heart to each. 

When they came to earth like the flowers in May, 
Grandmother's love, like the sun that warms, 

Tended and watched them from day to day. 

Till they burst into blossom in grandmother's arms. 

And grandmother loves the children well — 
I can tell by the tremble that stirs her cap 

When they are naughty, or cross, or ill, 

And come to the shelter of grandmother's lap. 

I can tell by the throb of her patient heart, 
And the paper of candy she lays aside, 

And the row of apples she counts apart. 

And the faults she is striving to mend or hide. 

They are not always as "good as bread," 
And as "true as steel," but they will be so; 

For love is the golden road they tread. 

Grandmother says — and she ought to know. 

She says we shall never grow better here 
By learning rules, and I think it true. 

Unless in our hearts we hold them dear — 
What we learn to love, we shall love to do. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 8^ 



And they love grandmother, I can tell. 

She is their fairy with snow-white hair ; 
And an angel would never be loved so well, 

If it sat there in grandmother's easy-chair. 

If grandmother's cap were a golden crown. 

She could never be more of a queen than now; 

For she rules them all with a smile or frown, 
And a single shade of her snow-white brow. 

For grandmother must be always right ; 

If she is not perfect, who ever was ? 
For her heart is so pure, and her head is so white, 

And then, too, she loves them — of course she does. 

But this is a secret I never tell ; 

For more than one grandma we can 't obey ; 
And if all were so good, and loved so well, 

They would rule us, like grandmother, every day. 



OUR BABY. 

Oh ! somebody kissed the baby, 
And somebody loves him too ; 

And somebody always watches 
To see what he will do. 

He unwinds the spools of cotton 
With a very serious air ; 

And washes the face of dolly. 
And tangles its yellow hair. 



86 Poetry and Prose of Marte R. Butler. 



And then he preaches sermons, — 
And that 's the funniest thing — ■ 

With the kittens for congregation; 
But the kittens will not sing. 

And then he tries to teach them, 
With a face so grave and stern ; 

And the kittens are attentive, 
Yet they never seem to learn. 

Then he writes papa a letter, 
And he tells about his horse ; 

How his broken head "gets worser" — 
'T was the mending made it worse. 

If you read it, he '11 be happy. 

If you laugh, you '11 see him frown; 

But whichever way you turn it, 
It is written upside down. 

Baby never reads his Bible, 

And he never says his prayers ; 

But he listens every evening 
To the children saying theirs. 

But if you try to teach him. 
Such a chatter he will keep. 

That you never can get farther 
Than "I lay me down to sleep." 

When at last you get him quiet. 
He 's forgotten all you 've said; 

Mouth and eyes are shut together 
In his sleepy little head. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 8y 



He 's a very naughty baby: 

Well, perhaps so ; but, you see, 

If our Heavenly Father has not 
Made him better, how can we? 

Three long years we 've loved and taught him, 

Just as well as we could do ; 
We are not to blame, if loving 

Is the only thing he knew. 

We are trying still to teach him 

All his little brain will hold ; 
Yet he still is but a baby, 

For he 's only three years old. 

Lay him down — you see he 's going 

To the pleasant land of Nod ; 
Ah 1 there's some One loves the baby, 

And I think it must be God. 

Love is all he knows of duty, 

And religion too, I guess ; 
But I think Our Father knows it 

Without loving him the less. 



ROBED IN WHITE. 

(Written for The Children's Friend.) 

One who loved the Saviour best, 
Told a story strange and true. 



88 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Of a "City of the Blest," 

Out of mortal reach or view, 
Where God's children, robed in white, 
Wander in His loving sight. 

On, through "shining streets of gold," 

Into jeweled palace homes, 
Where no darkness, storm, or cold. 

And no sunlight ever comes ; 
But "the Father giveth light" 
Where His children walk in white. 

But if here our spirits are 

Soiled or stained by earth and sin. 
Though the gates of pearl unbar, 

We shall never enter in ; 
Never, never walk in white 
Through the shining streets of light. 

Only hands as pure as snow, 
Only feet that stainless trod, 

Only sinless spirits go, 

To the "City of our God," 

Where sweet children walk in white 

In the Father's lovinsr siefht. 



SONG OF THE CHRISTMAS EVE. 

'T is almost nineteen hundred years 
Since Time renewed his age, 

And turned the leaves of Providence 
To date a fairer page. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 8g 



Then first he wrote the anthem down 
That angels chanted then ; 

And still we sing the Christmas song 
Of "Peace, good- will to men." 

Above the din of daily life, 

Above its pain and soil, 
Its silent melody of love, 

Its hammer-strokes of toil. 
The gates of Heaven still fall ajar, 

And angels sing again, 
On each returning Christmas eve. 

Still, "Peace, good-will to men." 

To council hall of Church and State 

The wise men crowd afar ; 
But we, like "wise men of the East," 

See but one sacred star. 
Sing ! for millennial years shall dawn 

O'er Shinar's valley, when 
The latest Christmas eve of time 

Brings " Peace, good- will to men." 



THE EVENING STORY. 

"No, we are not sleepy, mother, 
See how wide-awake we seem ; 

Tell us something sweet to think of. 
Tell us something sweet to dream. 

"Tell the very sweetest story 
That you ever heard or read. 



go Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



And you '11 see that we '11 remember 
Every single word you 've said," 

Then I told them of a midnight 

In the very long ago, 
When the sky was full of angels, 

And from every shining row, 

In a voice of heavenly music, 
Came a loving message, given 

For the sake of one sweet baby 

That had come that night from Heaven. 

"Now, please tell us just another; 

Tell the saddest one you know: " 
And I told of one who suffered, 

As he wandered to and fro ; 

Doing good to all around him. 
Without fear, or sin, or pride ; 

Blessing those who most ill-used him, 
For whose sake at last he died. 

" Now, please, just one more, dear mother, 
Tell us now the strangest one: " 

So I told them of a journey 
On a mountain-top begun : 

Through the azure, in a body. 
Just as here on earth he trod. 

Up through shining ranks of angels 
To the very throne of God. 



Poetry a7id Prose of Marie R. Butler. gi 



Four blue eyes and two sweet voices 
Waited till my tale was done ; 

Then they cried : * ' Why that was Jesus ! 
Those THREE stories are but one." 



A LETTER TO THE CHILDREN. 

"AND HE SAID UNTO ME, WRITE." 

Write for the children ? How can I 
Write of a time so long gone by? 
I have no dollies and toys and things, 
Beautiful buttons on wonderful strings ; 

And when my feet with the daylight fail, 
Nobody tells me a wonderful tale ; 
And all the giants and fairies seem 
To have passed away like a story dream. 

Nobody takes me upon his knee, 
And lovingly tells me how good I should be ; 
Yet deep in my heart I wish they would. 
For still, like a child, I want to be good. 

I think, and hope, and resolve, and try. 
And believe I shall do it by and by ; 
I believe I shall one day set my feet 
Firm on the beautiful ** Golden Street." 

But, oh ! if somebody only knew 
How hard it is to be good and true. 
And how I slip as I mount and climb 
Up the wonderful stairs of time. 



g2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Somebody does, and day by day 
Somebody leads me all the way ; 
Somebody calls me a child, and waits 
Just inside of the "Heavenly Gates." 

Somebody tells me how and when 

I shall become a child again, 

And walk in the beautiful "Streets of Gold," 

With feet that never grow tired and old, 

A child in my "Father's House; " and I 
Forget the time when I toil and cry, 
And only think what I shall do 
When I am again a child like you — 

When I live in a house with jeweled wall, 
With angels flitting from hall to hall ; 
Where no darkness comes nor candle burns, 
And no rising or setting sun returns ; 

And where I shall only care to rest. 
Because I shall lean on the Saviour's breast; 
Where I shall grow old for ever and ever, 
Yet still be a child, and wonder whether 

The fairies of Heaven (the angels) see 

A happier child than I shall be. 

I shall always be growing, and never be grown, 

Always be nearing the "Great White Throne." 

And all the poets that fill the earth 
With tales of fairies and songs of mirth — 
Ah ! you may forget them all, and yet 
The songs I sing you will never forget. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. pj 



When I "enter the palace and hve with the King," 
You shall hear the beautiful songs I '11 sing, 
And learn how immortal children dwell ; 
But the "end of it" — only God can tell. 



WHERE JESUS IS. 

The olden prophets walked with God, 
And little children found him ; 

And Jesus on the mountain stood 
With angels all around him. 

Yet I have watched the changing sky- 
All day, and longed to find him ; 

I saw the curtained clouds draw back, 
But God was not behind them. 

The angels poured the sunshine through 
Wherever clouds were riven ; 

It fell like heaps of golden sand 
Swept down the stairs of heaven. 

But down the golden roads of air 
No angel's feet are stealing ; 

And still the clouds in joy sail on, 
No face of God revealing. 

We can not hear the Saviour call 
From out the cloudy splendor, 

But where sweet children sing his praise 
In voices low and tender ; 



p/ Poetry and Prose of Ma7ne R. Butler. 



Wherever patient hearts endure ; 

Where souls grow tired of sinning; 
Wherever love toils bravely on 

For something worth the winning ; 

Wherever bodies sigh with pain ; 

Wherever hearts are broken ; 
Wherever some one might be won 

If loving words were spoken ; 

Where we make others happy, with 
Some good that God has lent us — 

There Christ is walking by our side, 
And God himself has sent us. 

His footsteps are around the door 
Where love to want is giving; 

And where for His sake we forgive, 
There Christ with us is living-. 



MY LETTER FROM THE KING. 

One day, a long, long time ago. 

As little children do, 
I read a story o'er and o'er, 

And longed to find it true. 

'T was of a great and mighty King, 
Who ruled a famous land ; 

And on a fairy hill-top built 
A palace vast and grand. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. g^ 



Then, by an order from the King, 

The gates wide open stood ; 
And messengers went far and wide 

To call the brave and good. 

But somewhere on the winding way 

A giant lived in state. 
And fought the pilgrims day by day, 

Who passed his castle gate. , 

He conquered some, and some were killed. 
And some, with many a sting 

Of cruel arrows, reached at length 
The palace of the King. 

And there at last, the story said, 

They all are living still, 
With fairies flitting in and out 

The palace on the hill. 

I lived to find my story true. 
To know the ' ' famous land ; " 

And here 's my letter from the King, 
Whose gates wide open stand. 

His palace is beyond the clouds, 

And all the stars on high 
«Are only golden lamps hung round 

His palace in the sky. 

So I go on, and day by day 

Grow gladder while I sing, 
Nearing the "city on the hill " — 

The " palace of the King. " 



p6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



I often meet the giant too — 
My giant's name is Sin — 

I fight him at his castle gates, 
And will not enter in. 

And I shall meet him yet again, 
But angels help me still — 

These are the fairies of my King, 
The servants of his will. 

My King is called the "Wonderful, ' 
The ' ' Mighty " and the " Fair "— 

His names are in your Bible; 
My letter too is there. 

When I am sad I read again 
My letter from the King, 

And looking toward the open gates, 
Grow gladder while I sing. 



OUR NATION'S DESTINY. 

The years of the past in a sorrowful train 

Come up from the grave, where they long have lain, 

To tell of the nations that rose and fell 

On the billows of time as they sink and swell ; 

And the sound of their footsteps gliding by 

Echoes, "Nations like men are born to die." 

The worm is ever about the root, 

And the seeds of decay in the ripened fruit — 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. gy 



Thus the glory of Rome in its great renown 
Has sunk in the night of the ages down. 

But thy records tell that the crimson tide 

Was poured to flatter a monarch's pride, 

And the pillars of State are never strong 

That are built o'er the grave of a terrible wrong. 

So, sorrowful years, in your records old, 

No words prophetic of time ye hold ; 

For the world of to-day is wiser, we know. 

Than the world of a thousand years ago, 

And the earth is purer for all the tears 

That have flowed for the sins of a thousand years. 

From the misty shadows of glory fled — 

From the ashes of empires cold and dead — 

From the chaos of error and pomp and sin 

And splendor, and where their thrones have been, 

A nation has risen whose youthful prime 

Will forever defy the storms of time. 

Oh ! gaze, ye prophets of pitiless fate, 

O'er the sun's broad path to his western gate, 

Where, lapped on the earth in its emerald dyes, 

The youngest-born of the nations lies. 

'T was after the night of the middle years — 

That sleep so troubled with doubts and fears — 

As the eyes of the East in their westward way, 

Followed the sun through the weary day, 

They saw on the shore of the far-off land 

A kneeling group, an unlifted hand : 

'"T is a goodly home we have found to-day ; 

But the earth is the Lord's — give thanks and pray." 

And the prayer that was offered on Plymouth shore 

Is recorded in Heaven for evermore. 



g8 . Poetry and Frose of Marie R. Butler. 



The solemn winds were the priests of God 

That scattered the spray o'er tlie frozen sod; 

The altar the rock, and the font the bay — 

And this was our nation's baptismal day. 

The sun on his journey paused and smiled 

On the Earth as she folded her new-born child ; 

So the royal mantle of purple dyes 

Was cast on the child from the crimson skies ; 

And day by day at his western gate 

He lingers to smile on the fair young State. 

Go back, ye ghostly prophet of doom. 

To the temple of fate amid ashes and gloom, 

Where the priests of Ruin are waiting for thee 

To preside at their terrible mystery. 

Go back and tell that a higher power 

Controls our fate till the final hour ; 

For the youngest child of the earth shall be 

The brightest one in her destiny ; 

And God shall speak her time to die, 

When the earth shall be laid in oblivion by. 



THE ANGELS. 

One day at sunset, or the hour 
When day in Heaven grows old; 

Just when the heavenly evening filled 
The city paved with gold, 

Long ranks of shining angels stood 
Around the Saviour's throne. 

And told of all the wondrous things 
That one bright day had known. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. gg 



One said a thousand angels stood 

Before the Father's face, 
Forever singing, ' ' God is good, 

And this his dwelhng-place. " 

And one said, all the shining stars 
That traveled round the sun. 

Were only great and mighty worlds, 
In which God's will was done. 

Another said 't was summer-time 

Down in this world of ours, 
And streams of sunshine filled the earth 

With grass, and birds, and flowers ; 

And happy children laughed and played, 
And only hushed their mirth 

At evening, when they thought of Him 
Who made this green old earth. 

At last a brighter angel spoke, 

And all the rest were still : 
**God sent me to the earth to see 

Who did his holy will. 

**I watched the children all day long, 
Through all their work and play. 

And when they slept, / kissed tJte one 
Who did God's will to-day." 

And then the thousand angels sang 
Loud songs of joy and mirth 

That overflowed the walls of Heaven, 
And drifted down to earth. 



loo Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



LINES, WITH A BIBLE PRESENTED. 

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." 
Psalm cxix. 105. 

We met and we parted, 

And now at your feet 
I hold out this lamp 

O'er the way we shall meet. 
My heart must remember. 

And lovingly still 
I fain would rule over 

Your heart and your will, 
I watch and I wait, for, early or late, 
You are ruler of destiny, lord over fate. 

By the past I adjure. 

By the present implore, 
By the future entreat ; 

At the wide-open door 
Where Love bears his chosen 

Triumphantly through, 
I shall leave my lamp burning, 

And waiting for you. 
I shall watch, I shall wait, for, early or late, 
You are lord if you will o'er the kingdom of fate. 



MY LIFE AND I. 

How long I shall live, not the angels can tell ; 
When and where be the place of my dying ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler, loi 



Whose hands shall ungirdle a travel-stained robe 
From a bosom that 's done with its sighing; 
Whose hands shall caress me, 
And whose lips shall kiss me — 

The sweetest and last that go with me to Heaven. 

In some hour that 's Eternity's centre to me, 

To my soul both an end and beginning, 
My heart shall not beat for my passionate brain, 
And my hands shall not care for the winning ; 
And a wonderful thing, 
Without visible wing, 
Shall rise and soar up to the Kingdom of Heaven. 

But what of the things that are left — shall I care 

What others shall say of my yearning, 
And how they shall light up my weakness and pain 
With the eyes of their quiet discerning? 
What I shall have won, 
And what left undone, 
And what taken with me unfinished to Heaven ? 

'T is a very small place in the world that I fill — 

Could I have enlarged it, I wonder, 
With my strength and my weakness combining to 
keep 
My life and ideal asunder? 

Will my powers be stronger, 
Where life shall be longer ? 
Shall we dream and not do in the Kingdom of Heaven ? 

When some one shall quietly cover my face. 

And say, "All her labor is ended," 
'T will only mean this, that my failures are o'er. 

And my time and my task are extended. 



102 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



O world of success 

And infinite bliss, 

Whose shadows fall over and glorify this ! 



MY THEORY. 

Step like a child on the threshold of being, 

Into the future, forgetting the past ; 
Our vision is dim and our farthest foreseeing 

Is bounded by mist and by darkness at last. 

Out of the range of our limited vision, 
Out of the reach of our toiling and strife. 

Calm-browed with a sense of their holy commission, 
The angels are solving the problems of life. 

They weigh our deserts with our power of endurance, 
And temper it all with the mercy of God ; 

Then send with their verdict the blessed assurance 
That only His children pass under the rod. 

Our surest foundations may crumble in sorrow. 
Our air-builded castles in tears may dissolve ; 

Omniscience alone can decide for the morrow, 
And leave not a doubt for the morrow to solve. 

Here in the twilight of weak indecision, 

Groping through mist of our gathering tears. 

We longingly strive for that purified vision 

That comes with the sorrow and patience of years. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. loj 



Then look up to God in His wonderful patience, 
And, hopelessly measuring our stature by His, 

The possible life of divine expectations 

Is lost to our view through the failures of this. 

Earth's story goes on like the change of the seasons. 

God turns a new leaf for each oncoming age. 
And each with its failures, successes and reasons. 

Contributes an ill or a well- written page. 

And those generations least willing to borrow 

The lights that were trimmed in the ages gone by. 

Most eagerly look for a grander to-morrow, 

And catch the first glimpse of its dawn in the sky. 

O infidel hearts, that o'er errors and losses 
In dust of eternal repentance lie down, 

Accepting life's trials and bearing its crosses. 

Why, why not press on where He holdeth the crown? 

God is not the poorer for all our wrong-doing. 
Or richer for lives that are wasted in tears ; 

'T is not an avenger our footsteps pursuing. 
But angels of mercy encompass our years. 

Let us not be -wreckers to toil o'er disaster. 

And weep o'er the fragments cast up by the sea. 

But sail on like ships with a heavenly Master, 
From the life that now is to the life yet to be. 



MY CREED. 

I believe in God the Father, father of all human souls, 

Not a ruler watching Nature while her wondrous plan unrolls, 



10^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



But the Father of our spirits and the Moulder of our frames, 
Loving each as one begotten, calling each by separate names — 
In the Father of our spirits I believe. 

I believe the Holy Jesus loved divinely, suffered much, 
That our God might reach His children with a close and human touch, 
Drawing us with love so tender up the pathway where He trod, 
Till we fall, like weeping children, in the yearning arms of God — 
In our King and Priest and Prophet I believe. 

I believe the Holy Spirit fills the earth from shore to shore. 
Round about, above, within us, bearing witness evermore; 
Where the Holy Guest abideth, if He tarry but a night, 
Even sordid eyes beholding, see the wondrous love and light — 
In the Paraclete of promise I believe. 

I believe the holy angels hover round us all the way, 
Each commissioned by the Father — clouds of witnesses are they; 
To the throne they bear our sorrows, then return on tireless wing. 
Bringing to each heart dispatches from the palace of our King — ' 
In the ministering angels I believe. 

I believe in life eternal — trees and flowers and drops of rain 
Live and die, and, decomposing, live and die and live again; 
Doubting still what wondrous changes shall complete the perfect 

sphere. 
Life I know is greater, grander than the segment pictured here — 
In the coming life eternal I believe. 

I believe the holy message as infallible and true. 
What therein the Lord commandeth, He will strengthen us to do ; 
Not in churches, saints or prophets, nor in wise men can I trust, 
If they teach me words of wisdom, where they learned them, there 
I must — 

In the Word of inspiration I believe. 

I believe that human loving is a lesson taught above, 
I believe the cup of blessing is a brimming cup of love ; 
Loving, when the flesh is willing, is the sweetest drop of bliss ; 
Loving on through pain and evil is diviner still than this — 
In love, the law of love fulfilling, I believe. 

I believe in sweet communion with the saints in praise and prayer; 
I believe that in forgiving we rise upward stair by stair ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. lo^ 



I believe in godly strivings, I believe in contrite tears ; 
I believe that in believing we shall live through endless years ; 
For the key of life is only — I believe. 



NEARER GOD. 

Sometimes when silence grows intense, 

And viewless hands restrain 
Within the close-bound gates of sense 

The pris'ner of the brain, 

When soul defiant yieldeth not. 

And all its vassals keep 
The wondrous sentry gates of thought 

Against the power of sleep. 

No longer doubt and pain and sin 

My will and purpose mar, 
And grapple with their might-have-been, 

Across the things that are. 

There seems no haste for things to be, 

No error to undo, 
No doubtful poise of victory, 

No struggle to be true. 

God underlies the solemn past. 

The future far and dim ; 
All evil things that live and last, 

Must live and last for Him. 



io6 Poetry aJtd Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Across the plains of human sense 

The floods of evil run ; 
The mountain-tops of Providence 

Are always in the sun. 

Perhaps all souls a moment drop 
The sins and ills they bear; 

Each spirit hath its mountain-top, 
And meets its Maker there. 

So when the silence grows intense, 

With darkness overrun, 
I to.uch the hand of Providence 

One moment in the sun ; 

One moment where no sin has trod, 

High over human ill, 
I lean upon the heart of God, 

And find it kindred still — 

Kindred through all our sins and woes. 
Through all our pain and blight. 

Evil like water downward flows ; 
Soul, upward to the light. 



AFTER A WHILE. 

After a while is a beautiful day — 
The storm will be ended and brighter the sun, 
The weariness over, the task will be done. 
Some sweet thing is coming to every one, 

After a while. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. lo'j 



After a while is a prosperous day; 
Then we shall have all the wisdom we need ; 
Our earnest endeavors shall always succeed, 
Till every ideal expand to a deed, 

After a while. 



After a while is an affluent day, 
When our fugitive treasure shall all be secure. 
And we shall forget that we ever were poor, 
When patience shall blossom and friendship endure, 

, After a while. 



After a while is a halcyon day, 

When the love we have lavished our bosoms shall 

bless ; 
Then shall be true every hand that we press, 
The hearts we confide in, the lips we caress, 

After a while. 



After a while, 't is a merciful day, 
Filled with all comfort and free from all fear. 
And thrilled with' all love. Ah ! if only 't was clear 
What the day of the month and the month of the 
year, 

After a while. 



After a while ! 'T is a far-away time ; 
For now, while impatiently counting, I see 
'T is not in the calendar open to me, 
So it must be in God's, in the life that 's to be. 

After a while. 



io8 Poetry and Pivse of Marie R. Butler. 



DR. L. L. PINKERTON. 

O life that has passed from our vision away, 
To the hearts that shall seek and not find thee. 

The light shall grow dim in the face of the day, 
And the shadows shall lengthen behind thee. 

And yet we are glad thou hast entered thy rest 

Ere the sun of thy life had sunk low in the west. 

Thy lot has been weary, thy pathway was hard ; 

Dear heart! can we weep for the ending. 
When thy beautiful dreams were all broken and 
marred, 

In the van of the battle contending ? 
But 't is always the same with the heroes that wage 
A war with the errors and sins of an age. 

We think with regret of the life that is spent, 
But the soul never dies, and the arrow 

Death leaves in the bow of a purpose still bent, 
Speedeth on to its mission to-morrow. 

And thy thought shall not die, but live on and ex- 
pand 

Into deeds that are noble and lives that are grand. 

Thou hast fought through the evil, still holding the 
right ; 
Thou hast finished the task that was grandest — 
Toiled on through the darkness and entered the light, 

And now in the glory thou standest. 
Though tears stain the way where in pain thou hast 

trod, 
'T was in parallel lines with the purpose of God. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. log 



We weep for the bowl that is broken ; but think : 

The wine is not spilled ; and forever 
At the crystallized cup of thy purpose we drink. 

And grow strong by thy earnest endeavor. 
Not so hard 't is to die as to live and be true ; 
Let us drink and grow stronger to will and to do. 

O feet that now walk in a beautiful place. 

Thy errands of mercy are over ; 
O beautiful soul in a toil-hardened face, 

Humanity weeps for a lover. 
But now looking up through our tears, we can see 
'T is a glory-lined cloud that encompasseth thee. 

We think of thy lips that are frozen and dumb, 
And sigh for their closed revelation ; 

But now in the land of the kingdom to come. 
They are touched with a new inspiration ; 

An apostle to witness His glory to-day, 

Thy soul is not dumb, though thy lips are but clay. 



MY VESPER SONG. 

Filled with weariness and pain. 
Scarcely strong enough to pray, 

In this twilight hour I sit— 
Sit and sing my doubt away. 

O'er my broken purposes, 

Ere the coming shadows roll, 

Let me build a bridge of song: 
"Jesus, lover of my soul, 



no Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



" Let me to thy bosom fly " — 

How the words my thoughts repeat ! 

To thy bosom, Lord, I come, 
Though unfit to kiss thy feet. 

Once I gathered sheaves for thee, 
Dreaming I could hold them fast; 

Now I can but idly sing : 

"Oh! receive my soul at last.'* 

I am weary of my fears ; 

Like a child when night comes on, 
In the shadow, Lord, I sing : 

"Leave, oh! leave me alone. " 

Through the tears I still must shed, 
Through the evil yet to be, 

Though I falter while I sing, 

"Still support and comfort me." 

"All my trust on thee is stayed" — 
Does the rhythm of the song, 

Softly falling on my heart, 

Make its pulses firm and strong ? 

Or is this thy perfect peace 
Now descending while I sing, 

That my soul may sleep to-night 

" 'Neath the shadow of thy wing " ? 

"Thou of life the fountain art." 
If I slumber on thy breast, 

If I sing myself to sleep — 

Sleep and death alike are rest. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. iii 



Through the shadows overpast, 
Through the shadows yet to be, 

Let the ladder of my song 
"Rise to all eternity." 

Note by note, its silver bars 
May my soul in love ascend, 

Till I reach the highest round 
In thy kingdom without end. 

Not impatiently I sing, 

Though I stretch my hands and cry , 
"Jesus, lover of my soul, 

Let me to thy bosom fly." 



WOMEN— MISSION WORKERS. 

That work hath the Lord for His daughter to do. 

The pillar of cloud is hung o'er us ; 
The field of the world stretches wide to our view, 

And the cross is uplifted before us. 

Shall we pray that his kingdom shall cover the earth. 

The way to whose feet is so narrow ; 
And yet standing idly look up to our God, 

Waiting still for a fairer to-morrow? 

No brighter to-morrow shall dawn on our sight ; 
The age of our bondage is over; 



112 



Poetry and Prose of Mmie R. Butler. 



No grander commission than ours of to-day 
Can the eye of a prophet discover. 

Shall we talk of our spheres, and forever divide 

On opinions all erring and human ; 
And idly gainsaying fall out of the ranks, 

When a half of the army is woman ? 

It was at Creation, is now and shall be, 

Despite of our puny opinion ; 
God rrade us together to conquer the earth. 

And gave us with our brothers dominion. 

Then He from the throne of his glory came down, 
The Redeemer was born of a woman ; 

The curse was dissolved in the shade of the cross. 
In a love that was tender and human. 

While humanity stretches Rer sorrowful hands. 

Repeating her pitiful story, 
At the foot of the ladder, like Jacob asleep. 

Shall we dream of the infinite glory, 

When the ladder of love stretches up into Heaven, 
And we, like the angels descending. 

May bear up a soul from the sin-burdened earth. 
From trial to triumph ascending? 

The ages have blossomed for us, and we stand 
Where the field to our vision is given ; 

Let us rally to-day at the foot of the cross. 
And march on to the kingdom of heaven. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. iij 



MY SUNSET WINDOW. 

I saw the golden sunset overleaping 

The dark horizon with its flaming wings, 

But only felt the long-armed shadows creeping 
Behind the substance of material things. 

They clung about me, and each moment longer, 
Fleeing from nothing and pursuing naught, 

Communing with the darkness, growing stronger, 
Grappled more firmly with the feet of thought. 

I sighed and shuddered, and, the text forgetting, 
I read no sermon in the day's decline; 

No golden poem where the sun was setting. 
And no hand-writing in the blazing sign. 

And like the day, I wished I too was dying; 

Blinder than he who pressed the stony sod, 
I, at the foot of Jacob's ladder lying, 

Saw not the angels that descend from God. 

I wished that I too, like the day, was dying — 

Strange, thoughtless words ; and yet why not, dear 
Lord ? 

From every vale of darkness, sin and crying, 
Some path of love must lead us gloryward. 

To die like this fair day, would be to find it. 
To cross the hills of doubt that hem me in, 

And see the golden city just behind it. 

Where there is no more darkness, pain or sin. 



11^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Why not, dear Lord ? The only clouds that harm me 
Are those that shut Thee from my eager sight ; 

Down through thy blessed sunset look and warm me, 
Till death shall seem but entrance into light. 

The clouds were parted, and a sweet inviting 
Came like a telegram of peace from heaven 

Down wires invisible, and this hand-writing 
Was the transcription of the message given : 

' ' There is no night in the Eternal City, 
And no night here to those who seek His face. 

O'er the horizon of His love and pity — 

The road to heaven is straight from every place." 

Ah ! what are tears to those whom angels visit ? 

And what is darkness in a world like this ? 
When angels lower the lights of life, then is it 

To show us pictures of a world of bliss. 

Eyes dim with tears may catch the glowing vision. 
Weak hands may clasp the angels as they fly 

Up Jacob's ladder to the life elysian, 
Whose far perspective is the sunset sky. 

Life grows exalted, and the things that grieve me 
Seem but lost atoms of a grander whole ; 

My greedy senses drink their fill, and leave me 
Here, at this sunset window, with my soul. 



A PRAYER. 

O Christ that loved me more than men, 
Upon whose faithful breast 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ii^ 



I lean my weary spirit, when 
I find no human rest, 

Into thy listening ear I pour 

My sorrows sore and long, 
And learn the lesson o'er and o'er, 

To suffer and be strong. 

A thousand eyes look unto Thee — 

A thousand hands implore, 
A thousand weary hearts like mine. 

Beseech Thee o'er and o'er. 

For all the earth is filled with prayer; 

Though voiceless, strange and dumb, 
Its pulses thrill the conscious air, 

And through the silence come 

To throb upon that listening ear 
That needs no sound, nor speech 

Of man, and yet divines the thought 
That fills the heart of each. 

Thy love and patience are as vast 

And soundless as the sea, 
And there our frailest anchor cast, 

Holds on eternity. 

And yet how often while we think 

Our treasures are above, 
The plummet of our hearts we sink 

In many a hopeless love. 



ii6 Poetry and Prose of Mai'ie R. Butler. 



They come, dear Christ, to seek Thy face 

When every Hght is gone, 
As pilgrims seek a resting-place. 

Before the night comes on. 

Just as the babe upon my breast 

Fears naught of human ill, 
So hold me on Thy heart at rest. 

As helpless, loving, still. 

Why do I leave Thy outstretched arms, 

And tempt the dark alone? 
Why do I fear all human harms 

When I should fear but one — 

Fear only that I grieve too much 

Thy patient heart, until 
I slip from out Thy loving touch, 

To work my wayward will ? 

O Christ, by human love unblest, 
Through darkness, pain and care, 

Like some tired child I seek Thy breast, 
And lay my sorrow there. 



ACROSS THE SEA. 

All I know of love is this: 
It is something that we miss. 
Never something we forget; 
For a golden hour is set 
Evermore in memory 
When you went across the sea. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. iiy 



What we said I can not tell ; 
What we thought I know full well. 
Hope was fair and speech was true, 
Life was golden through and through, 
When you told me, tenderly, 
You were going across the sea. 

I remember how your eyes 
Dimmed with tears of strange surprise 
When my trembling hand was laid 
On the shoulder God had made 
For my rest, though it should be 
Going from me o'er the sea. 

When the parting came, at last. 
How your dear eyes held me fast. 
While my quivering heart was pressed 
Close and closer to your breast ! 
'T was a blissful dream to me ; 
But you went across the sea. 

Ah ! I should not tell a dream. 
Love is not a woman's theme; 
She should only patient wait,' 
Take or lose the gift of fate ; 
Weep, if must be, silently. 
For a love across the sea. 

This is long ago ; and now, 
With no kisses on my brow, 
Love its solemn fast will keep 
Through my waking and my sleep. 
When I dream again, 't will be 
I that go across the sea. 



ii8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



RETICENCE. 



Sitting, dear one, all alone, 
Let me catch the undertone 
Of your thoughts, and softly glide 
Into musing at your side. 

Would you care if I should know 
All the thoughts that come and go 
Through your gentle heart and brain? 
Darling, would it give you pain? 

Would a sudden, swift eclipse 
Darken o'er your eyes and lips 
If I read the secret there, 
Trembling in your waving hair ? 

All the thoughts are pure, I know, 
Flitting trackless o'er the snow 
Of your bosom, that to-night 
Lures me with its stainless white. 

I have told you all, my sweet. 
Is a woman more discreet? 
Must she always something hold, 
Lest her love be overbold? 

Gentle hands in mine you lay. 
Though you have your willful way ; 
Tender lips and thrilling eyes 
Full of love and sacrifice — 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. iig 



From my breast you look and plead, 
Yet your thoughts I can not read. 
See, I kiss your lips and brow: 
Darling, can you keep it now ? 

So you think my love would fail 
If your heart should rend its veil ; 
If I read you through and through, 
That I should not care to woo. 

So your bridal veil must be 
Symbol of your life with me: 
Always something sweet revealed, 
Always something half-concealed. 

Do I think it best? Ah ! well. 
Loving you, I can not tell. 
You will keep your secret still, 
Pris'ner of your wayward will. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

A SONG. 

Into the wilderness round about Jordan, 
Went out the wonderful prophet of yore, 

Preaching a kingdom that should be eternal — 
Preaching of wrath that should slumber no more. 

Into the wilderness round about Jordan, 
Went out the Saviour untouched by a sin ; 

King of a kingdom that should be eternal — 
Pure as the dewdrop the flowers shut in. 



I20 Poetry a7td Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Out of the waves of the swift flowing Jordan 

Jesus emerging-, the heavens divide ; 
Down from the throne comes a message, repeating: 

"This is my Son " wliile the ages abide. 



THE GREATEST PROPHET. 

(John i. 34.) 

Then came the blessed One, and John, beholding, 

Cried, "This is He who came, 
The ancient prophecies of God unfolding, 

Before I knew His name. 

"The Lamb of God, whose heart so pure and lowly- 

The sins of men shall bear, 
The Lord's Anointed, for whose feet so holy 

A pathway I prepare. 

"I knew Him not till, by the Jordan standing, 

I saw the sacred sign — 
The Holy Spirit like a dove descending 

To crown the Lord divine. 



"Before the brightness of His dawning glory 

My footsteps shall grow dim : 
I but bear record of the wondrous story, 

And hide myself in Him." 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 121 



THE SECOND MIRACLE. 

A SONG, 
(Johnii.) 

One moment water, then 't was wine, 
Transformed by Him whose power divine 
In loving kindness deigns to heed 
The whisper of our smallest need. 
Oh ! all unworthy as I am. 
Lord, at the marriage of the Lamb, 
May I but drink, as guest of thine, 
Thy blood transformed to heavenly wine. 

O Giver of an endless good. 

Who, spite of our ingratitude. 

Sustains through earth and air and sea, 

The life that is, and is to be ! 

Oh ! all unworthy as I am. 

Lord, at the marriage of the Lamb, 

May I but drink as guest of thine. 

Thy blood transformed to heavenly wine. 



GOD. 



God is the power sublime 
That filled eternity and boundless space, 
Before Cre^ion, at the birth of Time, 

Beheld His radiant face. 

God is the power supreme 
That o'er the chaos of eternal night 
All smiling looked ; and, like a glorious dream, 

Creation woke to light. 



122 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



God is the wondrous power 
That breathed His soul-Hght into forms of clay, 
To shine forever, from that glorious hour, 

Lamps of immortal ray. 

His loving, watchful eye 
Looked down in pity, while the angels wept, 
When man — God's image — taught by sin to die, 

In earth's dark bosom slept. 

But when the earth grew dim — 
Dark with the shadow of its many graves — 
While souls went hopeless through the shadows grim 

O'er Death's unsounded waves, 

His was the soul of love 
That stooped in pity from His shining throne. 
Left the bright angels and the bliss above 

To suffer here alone — 

To suffer and to die. 
Meekly descending to the shrouded tomb. 
Where generations of the years gone by 

Slept in mysterious gloom. 

His was the mighty hand 
That swept the shadows from the grave away, 
And lit the doorway of the spirit-land 

With Hope's undying ray. 

And many a tear-dimmed eye 
Grows bright and brighter with each graveward view. 
While souls their burdens at the door lay by 

And pass with angels through. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i2j 



But when the spirit's sight 
Is dim, or bHnded by earth's gath'ring dust. 
The soul perceiveth not that heavenly light, 

Feels not that heavenly trust. 

God loves and pities all, 
And His great heart shall cease to woo thee — never, 
Till Death enfolds thee in his gloomy pall 

Forever and forever. 

Far in the future lies 
A final hour, when suns shall cease to burn, 
And when the tear-stained earth and smiling skies 

To chaos shall return. 

But when the hour shall be 
When Time and all, all earthly things, a wreck. 
Float darkly out upon Eternity, 
• A dim, dim fading speck ; 

When suns and stars are fled. 
And all the universe waits dark and lone, 
When stern old Death at last lies shrouded — dead — 

Beside his crumbled throne ; 

The veil shall fall away. 
And night's dark curtain be forever furled 
Back from the brow of universe, while day 

Springs from the spirit-world. 

The souls, with Christ, who trod 
Through weary suffering to perfection on, 
Shall shine forever round the throne of God 

Like stars around the sun. 



1 24- Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



A RESPONSE. 



(Read before the General Convention, Thursday afternoon, October 
22nd, by Miss Ida Hood, of Cincinnati.) 

Sister Caroline Neville Pearre and other sisters of the Christian 
Church, in Convention assembled at Cincinnati, O., October 20th, 
1874: 

'T is not because I loved my pen 
I chose it from the tasks that lie 

Around a busy woman's life, 

Where cares expand and multiply ; 

It is not that I vainly hoped 

My feeble hands could reach beyond 

Life's common chords to touch the one 
To which all human souls respond. 

Although my little song may lull 
Some sad, unquiet heart to sleep, 

The world's calm pulses still flow on, 
And he who sleeps may wake to weep. 

But all that 's great or grand or good 
Appeals to womanhood and me ; 

All that my faith hath understood 
My purpose and my work must be. 

Like one beside Bethsaida's pool. 
In passive weakness, day by day, 

I saw the angel's sacred feet 

Disturb the pool and pass away. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 12^ 



Yet still I waited patiently, 

And told my little dreams in song; 
Content if some should say, Her voice 

Was feeble, but her soul was strong. 

And so in spirit I rejoice, 

And, standing in the ranks, I view 
Across the hills of Providence, 

The dawning light that beckons you. 

We know the age has bloomed for us ; 

For, when the Lord of Glory died. 
Between the Manger and the Cross, 

Our womanhood was dignified. 

Shall woman still, from age to age — 
Despite the wondrous sacrifice — 

Still weep beneath the olden curse 
That closed the .gates of Paradise? 

We stand upon a higher plane. 

And God himself, who came to bless, 

Still walks beside us day by day 
In guise of human helplessness. 

And those are God's who toil for Him, 
Their purpose, not their powers in view. 

Ordained in spirit for the work 
He whispers to their hearts to do. 

So in our hearts a voice is stirred 

To wond'rous depths we knew not of, 

A purpose and a work Is born. 

And all our souls are filled with love. 



126 . Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Now let us never doubting- say, 

I wonder if it is in vain ; 
But what is whispered to our hearts 

We '11 dare to tell the world again. 

No more beside Bethsaida's pool, 
In passive weakness, day by day, 

We watch the angel's sacred feet 
Disturb the pool and pass away. 

And you, whose tasks diverge from ours, 
Toil you so well that you should dare 

To tell us that we often mar 

Work that should be divinely fair ? 

We know it ; but a purpose bent 

By such a puny human strain. 
Could never half evolve the power 

Concentered in an earnest brain. 

Warmed by a patient human heart 

That learned through many a doubting year 

That what He bids us do or say 
Is all we know of duty here. 

We labor with our hands, and see 
Exact results from effort grow ; 

But what our words accomplish here 
On earth, we do not care to know. 

The world is wide, and few are heard 
Above its din of toil and strife ; 

But each may leave the world at last 
The better for her rounded life. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. izy 



So ever when He bids us work, 

Or speak His praise with tongue or pen, 

Shall blows of truth, or words of love, 
Fall somewhere on our fellow-men. 

Ah ! tell us not our blows are weak — 
Our words of love in silence die ; 

God's balances are turned by hairs. 
And all our efforts in them lie. 

While thus I think, my soul expands. 
And, for a moment grand and strong. 

All things seem near and possible, 
And all my soul breaks forth in song. 



THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 

The Cross of Christ ! I do not know 
Its place in heaven or here below. 
It flings across our human sense 
The sign of His omnipotence; 
Not borne aloft or hung in air, 
Untouched, unseen, yet everywhere — 
The Cross of Christ. 

The Cross of Christ — of old it stood 
A cruel cross of iron and wood 
That touched the earth and heaven and hell. 
While round about it darkness fell. 
When Truth was mocked and power defied, 
And Love and Mercy drooped and died, 
O Cross of Christ ! 



128 Poetjy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



The Cross of Christ for ages stood 
The symbol of all human good , 
The key of worldly fame and power ; 
The light upon the light-house tower, 
That o'er the Middle Ages swung, 
Before the bells of morning rung 
The better day, when once again 
The blessed Christ should speak to men, 
O Cross of Christ ! 

The Cross of Christ ! For years it stood 
The symbol of my solitude ; 
A daily milestone, where I 'd find 
How far I 'd left the world behind, 
And how much farther I must press 
To find the final blessedness. 
I missed the fact — the blessed Cross ; 
But grasped its shadow — pain and loss — 
The Cross of Christ. 

The Cross of Christ ! It came at last 
To mean a struggle overpast ; 
A fellowship of scourge and rod, 
And afterward the peace of God. 
And in this peace — so wide and deep, 
It fills my waking and my sleep — 
My patient lamp of love I trim 
As I lie down or walk with Him, 
O Cross of Christ! 

The Cross of Christ ! I do not know 
Its place in heaven or here below. 
It flings across our human sense 
The sign of His omnipotence ; 



Poetry and Prose of Mai'ie R, Butler. i2g 



And I may see without surprise 
Upon the hills of Paradise, 
The Cross of Christ. 



PENTECOSTAL VOICES. 

On the rock my church is builded, 
Far above the sands of time, 

And those echoes still are rolling 
Out through every land and clime. 

In the grand wide-open doorway 
See the great Apostle stand ; 

But the keys of life are given 
Not to any human hand. 

Evermore, like holy echoes, 

Pentecostal voices ring 
All adown the true succession, 

Christ our Prophet, Priest and King. 

Back within the solemn ages, 
Underneath the upas shade. 

Where on moss-grown trunks of error 
Luther's sturdy axe was laid ; 

Where the forest of oppression 
Waved the branches of its pride, 

Shutting out the light of heaven 
Where the holy martyrs died, 



1^0 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Wickliffe towered above the ages, 
Like a light-house on the shore ; 

Voices crying in the darkness 

Echoed from the Lollard's tower. 

Tongues of men were tongues of angels, 
Touched by fire and winged by fame ; 

Lat'mer lit a broad horizon 

With his winding-sheet of flame. 



AS OUR DAY SHALL OUR STRENGTH BE. 

As our day shall our strength be : 

Whatever betide, 
His ear is not sleeping. 
He heareth our weeping. 
His infinite keeping 

Sufficient shall be. 

As our day shall our strength be : 

The Lord will provide. 
If the load be not lightened. 
The way be not brightened. 
Still heaven is in sight, and 

Our God is the Lord. 

As our day shall our strength be : 

He knoweth our frame. 
While faith, even, slumbered, 
By darkness encumbered. 
Our hairs were all numbered 

By angels of God. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i^i 



As our day shall our strength be : 

The promise is sure. 

Mid toiUng and yearning, 

Still may we be learning, 

With Him is no turning. 

Nor shadow of change. 

As our day shall our strength be : 
The rest is with God. 
His bosom shall cover 
Our weakness, and hover 
In tenderness over 

The work of His hands. 

As our day shall our strength be ; 

O Lover and Friend, 
In rapture or sighing, 
Still may I be lying, 
In living or dying, 

Close, close to Thy breast. 



CHRISTMAS POEMS. 

WHEN SHILOH CAME. 
( Luke ii. 7.) 

A light in the darkness — a wonderful thing — 
A babe in the manger, the heir of a King. 
From the palace of God came a guest in the night 
To a manger and darkness, and sorrow and blight. 
The seed of a woman, the brightest and best, 
The blossom of ages, the promise of rest. 



1^2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 


THF angels' song. 


(Luke ii. 13, 14.) 


Down the shining ranks of angels 
Bursts an anthem loud and long: 

Christ is born, and love eternal 
Melteth into joy and song. 


CHORUS. 


Hark ! the angels sing together 
Songs that echo on forever; 
Still the siveet and blissfid story. 
Lord of love and life and glory. 


Since the morning stars together 
Sang the anthem of their birth, 

Only once the songs of Heaven 
Have come floating down to earth. 
Chorus. — Hark! etc. 


Then they sang a world created — 
Now, a world redeemed by love : 
Glory unto God the highest. 

Peace on earth, good-will and love. 
, Chorus. — Hark! etc. 


THE WISE men's SONG OF WORSHIP. 


(Matt. ii. 2.) 


Led by the Star of Bethlehem, 
Before Thy feet we bow ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. /jj 



We knew Thee as the Lord of Hosts — 
As Love we know Thee now. 

Through all Thy prophets, Lord, we trace 
Thy wondrous truth and power ; 

Thou art the Shiloh of our race. 
The One whom we adore. 

Thou shalt redeem our race from death : 

Thy triumphs who can tell ? 
Sent by the Lord Omnipotent, 

The Christ of Israel, 
O Royal Child of earth, to Thee 

Our grateful praise we bring ; 
Thou art the end of prophecy. 

Our Prophet, Priest and King. 



FRAGMENTS. 

Beyond the ocean of the air, 
Whose tidal waves expand. 

Creep up the western coast, and there 
Break on its golden sand ; 

Beyond the dear unconscious dead, 

Who lie like babes asleep, 
Unmindful that above their head 

We sin and toil and weep. 



Above the level of the plain. 
Where mountains cleave the air, 

We hail the treasure-ships of rain 
That never anchor there. 



i^/f. Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



I STAND upon the edge of bliss. 
Or on the brink of sorrow ; 

I know not what the future is. 
But I can trust to-morrow. 

I look into your melting eyes, 
And feel their gentle wooing ; 

But other hearts in just such eyes 
Have found their sad undoing. 



Sister and I. 

In the spring-time, I remember — 

Both were young, and one was fair- 
We were sitting, while the sunbeams 

Gleamed like arrows in thy hair ; 
Softly on thy brow there rested 

Rays the sunlight can not bring — 
Rays that only fall upon us 

In life's golden days of spring. 



A FACE IN A CROWD. 

The face was silent, cold and calm. 
Unmoved by thought or passion ; 

As undisturbed I scanned it o'er 
In strange familiar fashion. 

What was the firm-closed mouth to me ; 

The dark, bright hair, I wonder ; 
The tranquil breadth of brow serene ; 

The eyes so restful, under? 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 755 



I never moved their silentness 

Where Providence shall use them ; 

I neither know, nor think, nor guess, 
I only look and love them. 

Their key-note is not mine to touch, 

And yet my idle fingers 
Construct a chord wherein a note 

Of wondrous beauty lingers. 

Ah ! now 't is passed beyond my sight — 

The visible and real — 
Out through the gates of sight and sense, 

Into the wide ideal. 

And there, despite my consciousness. 
It lives and moves without me, 

Beyond the walls of commonplace 
I daily build about me. 

Could one more note have made for me 
Life's march more grand and solemn. 

And bid my straggling virtues close. 
And march in solid column ? 

Perhaps ; and yet perhaps withheld, 

And for a better reason, 
Let us believe whate'er we need 

Shall meet us in due season. 

Life is too grand to fail at last. 

And we, or soon or later, 
Grasp all we hope to find or be 

'Twixt creature and Creator. 



Ij6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



We needs must have some gath' ring-place, 

Where what we ask is given, 
Or want and loss would reign with God, 

And blight the airs of Heaven, 



THE ONLY DAUGHTER. 

Child of my dreams, through all the years 
When girlhood womanhood overlaps. 

Thy face, the crown of them all appears 
Since I was a child myself perhaps — 

Child of my dreams thou art. 

Child of my hope, a promise given — 
No earthly fate too sweet could be ; 

And thou must have died and grown up in Heaven, 
To have half the virtues I hoped for thee. 
Child of my hope thou art. 

Child of my prayers, I have kept the wires 
That bear our petitions up to the King, 

Untiringly burdened with my desires, 
And now, as I wait for His answering. 

Child of my prayers thou art. 

Child of my love, I never knew 

How Christ loves us till I saw thy face. 

There was nothing too great for me to do, 
As I looked at its sweet, unconscious grace. 
Child of my love thou art. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ijy 



Child of my own, in my heart and brain 

Has warmed the blood that now throbs in thine ; 

Perhaps — do I wish it ? — who can explain ? 
Is thy soul, dear child, a part of mine ? 

For child of my own thou art. 

Child of my faith, thy face to-night 

In the halo around the cross I see ; 
And there may I see it with failing sight, 

When I look my last on the cross and thee. 
Child of my faith thou art. 

And all the things I have done so ill, 

Thou wilt do them better in better ways ; 

And the things I did well, thou wilt do them still. 
And paint thy mother in robes of praise 

To a child of thine own dear heart. 



GOING ON A JOURNEY. 

All the house is full of bustle, 
Up and down the hall and stairs 

Busy people rush and rustle 

Here and there and everywhere. 

Some one 's going on a journey. 
So a thousand things are done ; 

Opportunity is over 

When the journey is begun. 

Here are books and there is paper, 
Here are clothes for some one, too. 



ij8 Poetry and Prose of Mane R. Butler. 



So much and more to do, and only 
One short day in which to do. 

For to-morrow, though we Hsten, 
Up and down the hall and stairs 

There '11 be silence, no one calling, 
Wanting something anywhere. 

Then shall I sit down and ponder 
How like death these journeys are; 

We are always getting ready 
For a journey long and far, 

To the great, eternal Kingdom, 
Where beside a jasper sea 

Travelers reach a golden city 
Where the many mansions be. 

All the earth is full of bustle, 
Up and down the world we go ; 

But at last, if we 're not ready 
For the journey, God will know. 

In a mansion built of jewels. 
And a city paved with gold, 

We shall need such spotless dresses 
That will not grow soiled or old. 



WHEN SHALL I SEE THEE, MOTHER 

MINE? 

I sit in the porch, with the mother away, 
With the day wearing on to its ending ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ijq 



And the shadows that slant in the wake of the day 

With my thoughts are unconsciously blending, 
As dark on my sight breaks the tide of the night, 
In the porch at the close of the day. 

And yet I am sure it is best as it is, 

Or at least it is just as I will it ; 
But this evening I only am thinking of this: 

Here 's a chair, and there 's no one to fill it. 
The last of the sunbeams have flickered about. 
And, missing your face, crept silently out 

Of the porch at the close of the day. 

As I know that the sun seeks its children afar. 
Who long and have need for its shining, 

So in fancy I trace every spot where you are, 
With a sweet, subtle sense of divining; 

So I whisper good-night, without sorrow or pain. 

To you and the sun till I see thee again 

In the porch at the close of the day. 

And when shall I see thee, dear mother of mine ? 

I fancy the leaves as they flutter 
The secret are whispering up to the vine — 

If I knew but the language they utter ; 
When they speak of the past I know all they would 

say, 
When they whisper together at close of the day 
In the porch at the close of the day. 



i^o Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



SATISFACTION. 

The rugged path at length was trod, 
The topmost summit was my rest; 

And circhng through my soul there went 
A consciousness of being blest — 

A sense of victory and joy, 

A calm that cometh after strife, 

A peace that only waiteth on 
The winner in the race of life. 

But joy and sorrow still are twins, 
And life and death walk side by side ; 

The misty plain that intervenes 
Is narrow when we deem it wide. 

And so across my sunlit way 
There fell a shadow of the past ; 

And all the heights my soul had won. 
Were only barren hills at last. 



A REVERIE. 

Misty dreams of the past arise. 

And youth returns to my faded eyes. 

Under the maples' crimson sheen, 
Under the beeches' gold and green. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i^i 



Forms that went out through the world's wide ways. 
Still walk in the light of other days. 

Some drifted away, I know not how; 
Some of them never met below, 

Some silent wait till the angels come 
To unclasp their frozen hands, and some 

With frozen hearts and iron will 
And averted eyes, are living still. 

And yet when here I stand alone, 
Across the gulf a bridge is thrown 

That wrath and change and death redeems, 
Although 't is but a bridge of dreams. 

Here where the grasses taller grew 
To catch the sunlight sifting through, 

I 've often watched the branches spread 
Their dark green tents above my head. 

When I shall walk through Paradise, 
Will something like this vision rise, 

And all the loved and lost redeem 
In sweet fulfillment of this dream ? 



MADALINE. 

Madaline may bid the world good-night, 
Drop the curtain, put out the light, 
Kneel by thy pillow soft and white. 



I/J.2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Purest spirits have need of prayer ; 
Happiest hearts, a cross to bear; 
All of us need a Father's care. 

All of us weave in a mystic loom. 
Webs of duty or blight or bloom, 
Bridal garments or shrouds of gloom ; 

But ever and ever, from youth to prime, 
The Master- "Weaver, with skill sublime, 
Controls the woof in the warp of time. 

He fills the shuttles of grand events. 
And hands them down to feeble sense 
With the golden threads of Providence. 

And day by day, when we weave therein 

Life's wondrous tissue so fine and thin. 

There 's a golden spot where a prayer has been. 



ONE DAY WITH GOD. 

There 's something sweet that touches 

The key-note of my life, 
And something strong that clutches 

The arm of toil and strife. 

The care and toil still linger — 

I feel the burden now ; 
The soil is on my fingers. 

The lines are on my brow. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 14.J 



When in the early morning 

My heart wept bitter rain, 
I could not bear the scorning. 

The sorrow, toil and pain. 

Yet now, if one should ask me 

If changed is all the woe. 
If different may the task be, 

My lips would answer. No. 

And in my strong temptation, 
I sought where Christ had trod, 

The way was smoothed with patience- 
I 've walked one day with God. 

To-night he undergirdeth 

My life and labor too ; 
His Holy Spirit wordeth 

My psalm of life anew. 

So while with patient blindness 

I walk with God apart, 
He wraps with loving kindness 

His peace around my heart. 



SOMETHING MORE. 

Adrift on a wide, wide sea, my love — 

A ship on a wide, wide sea, 
Whose helm is faith and whose sails are prayer. 

And whose port is destiny. 



i/j.^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Sometimes when the sun of life is high, 

I can see its glories play- 
On the mountain ranges of Heaven, and break 

On the summits far away. 

But my hands are weak, my eyes are dim, 

And the tide is dark and slow ; 
And the counter-currents of life set in 

To hinder me as I go. 

I know I fall in the measureless arms 

Of an infinite love to sleep, 
Upheld by the hand that holds the space 

Where the silent planets sweep. 

But I long for earthly arms to-night. 

And a human voice and hand ; 
My heart goes out like a wounded bird, 

O'er a desert waste of sand. 



GUESSING AT THE UNKNOWN. 

Down the grand ladder of the sacred pages 

Whose-long drawn length is time, whose rounds 
are years. 

Up which man climbs from far historic ages, 
And in the mystic future disappears, 

Men peer and wonder, but see no foundation ; 

The last round rests upon a new-born earth, 
And underneath — ah ! nothing but creation 

And chaos struggling into form and birth. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 7^5 



Howe'er we paint that far-off age of wonder, 
This grand old earth once had a natal day, 

Sometime and somewhere, in the heavens or under, 
In the vast womb of power divine it lay. 

Perhaps the universe stood still to witness 

The ceremonial of a regal birth ; 
Or vapory atoms with a perfect fitness 

Formed silent, slow into the solid earth. 

And when a thing moves on, it must have started : 

So force existed before motion grew ; 
And force without the motion it imparted 

Is power, and without matter spirit too. 

So power existed without minds to view it ; 

Or reason backward from the great First Cause, 
And Nature first was born when no one knew it — 

Ordained by fiat or evolved by laws. 

The power was first — the Power that planned and 
waited. 

And we as after atoms understand 
That like to like can only be related : 

He calls us children, and we take His hand. 

And so we leave Creation where we found it. 
Upon the shoulders of a Power that knew ; 

And the light that inspiration throws around it 
Brings us no nearer sight or clearer view. 



i/].6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



THE IRON-HORSE. 

'T is only a great, insensate thing, 

With many a lever and valve and wheel ; 

But the strength of a thousand lives is held 
In its muscles of iron and nerves of steel. 

It walks the earth like a conqueror: 

Behind it civilization streams ; 
With every stroke of its iron- arms, 

It utilizes an age of dreams. 

It strides across a mountain chain, 
Or delves the earth as a giant would ; 

Finds in her deep maternal heart 
The mystic hoard of primeval food. 



AT REST. 

Fallen asleep till the storm is over; 

Anchored where all the waves are still ; 
A happy voyage in sunny weather, 

Out of the shadow of human ill. 

A record opened where angels gather ; 

A heart all pure and a life unstained, 
Unscarred, gone up to the great All-Father- 

Ah ! nothing is lost, but all is gained. 

You strive in the conflict of many sorrows,- 
And dream of a rest that can never be. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i^y 



Till over the hills of the dark to-morrows, 
You reach the edge of the crystal sea. 

And ye only hope, when your toil is ended, 
To shake the dust from your weary feet, 

And that heart and brain, with its pulse suspended, 
Shall enter a rest like His — complete. 



FROM SUN TO SUN. 

When we rise at early morning", 
While the dew is on the sod, 
By our side there stands an angel 
With a message sent from God, 
Telling us what must be done 
Ere the setting of the sun. 

Never shall we rise so early. 
Never can we rise so late. 
But our hands may find the angels, 
And our hearts may feel them wait, 
Telling us from sun to sun 
All the things that must be done. 

If we disobey or heed them, 

Still the message-bringers come ; 
We can never drown their voices, 
And their lips are never dumb : 
One by one from sun to sun 
Still they tell what must be done. 

Jesus planned our lives to make them 
Happy lives, and good and true ; 



1^8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Jesus lived and died to teach us 
How the will of God to do. 
Evermore from sun to sun 
God hath something to be done. 

Sometime we shall sink to slumber. 

And our busy feet grow still ; 
Shall we then be glad to waken 
Where the angels do His will ? 
Help us, Lord, from sun to sun 
Till thy perfect will is done. 



MY FRIEND AND CHRIST'S. 

While others by thy pulseless clay 

Are dropping tears of woe. 
It is not meet that I to-day 

Am glad to have thee go. 

I could not tell to flesh and sense 
The strange, unerring thought 

That in this silence speaks intense : 
"God took him ; he was not." 

Leaf after leaf of commonplace 
That memory reads to-night. 

Grows dim beside that world-worn face 
Lit by a soul so white — 

A soul that loved all tender things 

The dear sun shone upon. 
And down in life's deep-hidden springs 

Found truth and love were one ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i^g 



A soul that looked and found the Christ 

Before him day by day, 
Some truth in prison sacrificed, 

Some stranger by the way. 

And so I close thy life's pure page — 
Forgetting God knows when — 

And wish thou in a purer age 
Had lived and walked with men. 



WHAT OF THE DAY? 

Sometimes when the day is over, 
And its pleasant tasks are done, 

And this spinning world, revolving, 
Turns its back upon the sun. 

When the shadows stretch their fingers, 
From the corners where they stay, 

To my little open window. 
As if shaking hands with day, 

Then I sit and think it over — 

Think of where the day has gone. 

Gone to tell our heavenly Father 
What the world and I have done. 



LIFE'S SERVICE. 

Somebody said I was growing old — 
'T was only a whisper soft and low ; 



i^o Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



But unless you heard it over again, 

You would never believe who told me so. 

Just think of them telling me such a thing, 

When my eyes are bright and my hair is brown, 

And I have not reached the top of the hill 
Which those who are old are going down ! 

I love whatever the children love. 

And I always wish I had time to play ; 

For the saddest thing of my ripening years 
Is to find that life has no holiday. 

Of course I can laugh or read a book, 
Or visit my neighbor across the street ; 

But over and under it all, I must think 

Of the duties that wait for my coming feet. 

You look with scorn at my patch — and yet, 
Can you write a line as Whittier does ? 

And what do you know that science tells 
Of the world that is, or the world that was ? 

And what do you do for your fellow-men ? 

Ah ! blush as you look at your dainty hand ; 
Your life at best is a narrow line 

Above the useful, below the grand. 

Do n't smile because I am darning socks. 

In a darn like this there is skill and taste ; 
And besides, I 'm a little disturbed to-night. 

And not inclined for the mirth you waste. 

'T is not that I love to stitch and darn. 
But I know that the task is dignified ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i^i 



And the grandest woman would not be good, 
If such simple duties she laid aside. 

You 've broken the thread of my sermon now — 
Do n't say it is only my stocking-yarn. 

I mount a ladder which you can not climb, 
Though you think my life is a series of darn. 

'T is true, I share the common toil, 

Make baby aprons, and mend them too ; 

But this is but one of the trades I know, 
I 've a wider field in the world than you. 

There 's nothing too common for me to do. 
And nothing too high, if I only can. 

I am proud of the distance that lies between 
The wide extremes of my daily plan. 

There 's a little corner of life for me 

Where there 's always something for me to do. 
You think it is narrow, but how do you know? 

It is hid from all the world and you. 

But God leans over the walls of Heaven, 
And singles me out as the only one 

Who can fill that little corner well ; 
And what I neglect is left undone. 

And this is as much as you can say. 

For you can not do more than God intends ; 

And the grandest things in the world are done 
With the least intention of noble ends. 

At least, the sermon I preach myself 
Is something like I am preaching now ; 



1^2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



And I grow more patient afterward, 

And have grander dreams of the work I do. 



RIVERS OF SONG. 

Sing of the One who is blessed forever, 

Arm of the feeble and Help of the strong; 

Love looketh up to the wonderful Giver — 
Pour out your praises in rivers of song. 

CHORUS. 

Sing, for the heavens are full of His glory, 
Pj^aises are swelling in rivers of so?ig ; 

Sing till the earth shall reecJio the story. 
Pour out your praises in rivers of song. 

Sing in the morning: the blessed Redeemer 
Waits for the tribute our voices shall bring. 

Tarry no more in the land of the dreamer ; 

Learn the new song that the blessed shall sing. 
Chorus. — Sing, etc. 

Sing in the noontide, when bright and unclouded 
Hope shineth fair in a beautiful sky ; 

Sing, by the shadows of evening enshrouded, 
Jesus our rightousness shineth on high. 

Chorus. — Sing, etc. 

• 

Sing of the One who is strong to deliver; 

Sing of the One who is mighty to save ; 
Sing, let your praises flow on like a river 

Over the silence of death and the grave. 
Chorus. — Sing, etc. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i^j 



MY IDEAL. 



Often, when the day is passing 

Softly, silently away, 
When the gentle shades of evening 

Mingle with the fading day, 
Comes a vision full of beauty, 

Noble dignity and grace ; 
And I often gaze in fancy 

On that sweet, ideal face. 

Yet I see it but in vision, 

Naught on earth is half so fair, 
And no other human features 

E'er that gentle smile will wear ; 
That calm brow a bright throne seemeth, 

Where sits calm and holy thought. 
High and noble aspiration. 

Deeds of daring yet unwrought. 

But the sweet, blue eye, soul-lighted — 

Fire and eloquence combined — 
Flashing with a light reflected 

From the jewels of the mind. 
How I love to gaze and ponder 

In the spell that fancy ' s wrought. 
Passing from this world external 

To an inner world of thought. 

Then the lips are slowly parted, 
And a voice comes soft and low ; 



i^/j. Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



And I think I 've heard its music 

Falhng softly long ago, 
In some other sphere of beauty, 

Where my soul has wandered free — 
Free to revel where the sunbeams 

Fell like starlight on the sea. 

Thus I love to sit and revel 

In the spell that binds me there, 
Till the light has all departed 

From the brow and waving hair. 
And the eye has lost its brightness — 

Softly fading into night ; 
Then my lovely vision passes 

With the last faint gleam of light. 

Starting up, I see the shadows 

Brooding where my vision smiled ; 
While above the earth is hanging 

Curtained darkness, deep and wild. 
But that face that beamed before me — 

Naught on earth is half so bright — 
Nowhere on this earthly planet 

Shine those eyes of living light. 

Others look on manly beauty, 

Say 't is nobleness and grace ; 
But I never see embodied 

Beauty like that dear dream-face. 
Others have the eye of brightness. 

And the forehead high and fair, 
But they lack the world-ideal 

That my fancy pictures there. 



Poetry and Pvose of Marie R. Butler. 755 



A VOICE IN THE STORM. 

Wild waves were dashing on the shore, 

And darkness frowned upon the deep, 
And sweeping by was heard the while 

The voice of winds that would not sleep ; 
Yet, mid the gloom, and on the wave, 

A bark was reeling in the storm, 
And at the helm the lightning gave 

The outline of a human form. 

All vain were human hand to save, 

And hope went out in night and gloom : 
Before him stretched a rocky shore ; 

Beneath, the waves prepared his tomb. 
But, mid the pauses of the storm. 

When waves roll back in scornful play, 
A wind-swept voice has reached his ear: 

"Steer this way, father — steer this way." 

He grasped the helm with steady hand ; 

Hope veiled her face in gloom no more, 
For, mid each pause of wind and storm. 

That voice kept floating from the shore. 
Still death may sing its cradle song 

While billows rock their helpless prey — 
Yet still that voice shall guide him on : 

** Steer this way, father — steer this way." 

Across the broad horizon sweeps 

That dark-browed spirit of the storm, 



1^6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Casting its shadow on the shore, 
Where stands a Httle human form. 

Now, flashing o'er each crested wave, 
A beacon casts its starry ray ; 

And, floating from the welcome land, 

Comes : * ' Father, father, steer this way. ' 

Ye sailors on the sea of life, 

Who watch with dread a darkening sky, 
And shrink when shrouded in the gloom 

The angel of the storm sweeps by, 
Oh ! have ye heard no loving voice 

To soothe the spirit's wild dismay, 
Repeating o'er and o'er again: 

"Steer this way, father — steer this way?' 

Ye, who have watched the lights of earth 

Go out in darkness one by one, 
Oh ! drift not, weary, doubting souls, 

Down to the isle of Death alone ; 
But gaze, oh ! gaze, with eye of faith. 

Where heavenly lights resplendent play, 
And voices of the loved repeat : 

O father, father, steer this way. 



LINES TO MY HUSBAND ON THE AT- 
LANTIC—OUTWARD BOUND. 

I am with thee — I am with thee. 

My beloved, evermore — 
With thee on the swelling ocean ; 

With thee on the smiling shore ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 757 



With thee in the holy midnight 
When God only sees thy rest, 

With thy dreams all wrapped about thee, 
I am sleeping in thy breast. 

Naught can e'er estrange or sever 

Hearts that are forever one — 
Lives our Father bound together 

Till our earthly task is done. 
In my heart thy voice forever 

Sings a thrilling undertone: 
I am with thee — I am with thee ; 

Thou art nevermore alone. 

Human love is never sinful, 

If 't is faithful, true and deep ; 
And I 've thought the heart is purer 

Where some image lies asleep ; 
For the one we love, my darling, 

Seems an angel in the heart; 
So we keep the bosom purer. 

Lest our angel should depart. 

In my heart are many voices 

Singing ever to my soul : 
First of all I loved, our mother, 

Gave the key-note to the whole. 
Now my soul lies dreaming, listening 

To thy thrilling undertone: 
I am with thee, my beloved ; 

Thou art never more alone. 



1^8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



LINES 

TO M. C. RAMSEY, WITH A BIBLE, PRESENTED BY HIS 
CHOIR. 

To him who plods his patient way, 
And times his march with holy song', 

Our kind remembrance and our love 
With all God's promises belong. 

Bound by the love these pages tell, 

Still may our memories cling and cleave 

Like wreaths of fadeless evergreen, 

From New Year's day till New Year's eve 

And Avhen we go at last to swell 

The music in a summer clime, 
Still may you lead us in the song. 

Though we have done with keeping time. 



CHANGE. 

My thoughts flitted over life's opening flowers 
Like beautiful birds over tropical bowers, 
Or the sunbeams of summer that sparkle and burn 
With the heat that is born in their mystical urn. 

But now o'er my passionless bosom they go 
Like winter-chilled birds over deserts of snow ; 
As coldly they gleam through the halls of my soul 
As the lights of the North that are born at the Pole. 



Poetry and Pi'osc of Marie R. Butler. i^g 



IS IT BEST? 



We are married ! Ah ! yes ; and each to his chosen 
Is bound by a link that naught earthly can loosen ; 
Yet, instead of a feeling of infinite rest, 
The question returns : Is it best ? — is it best ? 

It seemed best to be loved, and go on and go on, 
Loving all the world better for sake of the one ; 
And now standing here on the threshold of fate, 
Love makes it seem easy to toil or to wait. 

If love should go on without change or eclipse, 
To thrill from the heart through the eye and the lips ; 
If our souls could be white and our lips could be true. 
And the arm never fail till the journey were through. 

Do I tremble? Ah! well; if the picture is sweet, 
Then what were the dream could we live it complete ? 
Should we ever look upward for infinite rest? 
But the question returns : Is it best? — is it best? 

I was loved and am married ; yet, looking within. 
There 's the trail of the serpent and touches of sin ; 
And faults I have strangled and buried with hate, 
Like beggars still sit at my Beautiful Gate. 

Just now I have nothing to yield them ; but still 
They are stronger to-day than my love or my will ; 
And the one who clasps me to his passionate breast 
Must even take them. Is it best? — is it best? 



i6o Poetiy and Prose of Marie R. Biitlcr. 



But, ah! if the soul that enwraps me should prove 
As weak as my own, would my pulses still move 
To the rhythm of love in a holy endeavor 
To reach up through the flesh and grow Godward 
together ? 

If one shall be patient and one shall be true, 

When our souls in their shadows are turned up to 

view. 
Shall both be heroic, and bridge with a kiss 
A gulf that might yawn to a loveless abyss ? 

In that terrible nearness we covet to-day, 

Shall our thoughts never weary, and wander away 

After vanished ideals, and wake in the nest 

With that deep, silent cry: Is it best? — is it best? 

But, oh ! if the nest that we dream of should be 
The home of new souls that are purer than we. 
Shall we live and grow better, and lovingly bear 
Our balm of thanksgiving and burden of prayer ? 

Should we ever be worthy the wonderful trust. 
Till our souls are redeemed and our bodies are dust? 
Shall the love-angel always brood over the nest? 
If not, is it pure? — is it right? — is it best? 

When passion is over and patience is ended, 

Shall our souls, so diverse, have grown nearer and 

blended? 
Shall the love that now fills us, yet scarce is begun, 
To a love that 's diviner be leading us on ? 

Shall we learn the sweet lesson to love and forgive, 
And how to die grandly by learning to live ? 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i6i 



If so, then, dear eyes and dear heart, let us rest. 
While the future is God's — it is best — it is best. 



A REPLY. 

You ask me why I shut the door 

Upon a heart that is not cold, 
And let the curtains of reserve 

Fall o'er its windows fold on fold. 

You know the chamber of my heart ; 

A pleasant guest you long have been ; 
You thought the world would love me more 

If I would only let it in. 

So now and then I welcome one, 

Yet guard the door with jealous care ; 

But when they pass my threshold o'er, 
They melt to nothingness and air. 

Some look into my eyes with love, 
Yet lean so heavy on my trust 

I can not hold them, and they sink 
Down to a heap of fragrant dust. 

Some up and down my heart will glide, 
And scatter faint, sweet incense of 

Some latent dream, with warm, white hands 
That garnish all they touch and love. 

But when I stretch my arms and clasp 
A glowing shadow, and in pain 



i62 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



I see the sunlight sifting through 
A hollow heart or vacant brain. 

In one dim corner of my heart 
A waiting, smiling face I see, 

To all the world substantial, still 
Her shadow side is turned to me. 

But why, I do not ask to know ; 

I can accept it if I must : 
And this at least is better than 

A fine, transparent heap of dust. 

I am content to wait, and while 
I pass before her make no sign ; 

I can not clasp a shadow, and — 
I know she is a guest of mine. 

But while she listens to my song, 
I move her heart to love or pain ; 

'T is not what I had wished, but still 
I would not snap the cord in twain. 

And still she keeps her seat secure — 
I look, and smile to think it so ; 

What mists may rise our heart between, 
I may not live or care to know. 



YE HAVE NOT LIVED IN VAIN. 

Look at the flower whose fragrant head 
Is bending neath the autumn blast. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j6j 



When downy leaves and graceful stem 
Have yielded to the storm at last; 

Yet from its silent, peaceful death 
Full many a lesson we might gain 

To teach us in our onward path, 
"Thou hast not lived in vain." 

The lovely child whose infant feet 

Still trod upon the flowers of youth, •, 
Cut down before its infant heart 

Knew evil from the way of truth ; 
Yet, angel visitant of earth, 

Thou 'st woven many a deathless chain 
Around true hearts that fondly loved — 

"Thou hast not lived in vain." 

And thou who through life's shadowy path 

Hast walked, with sorrow oft oppressed, 
Yet with a ready hand hast wrought 

Comfort to many an aching breast; 
When death's dark billows round thee roll, 

Heaved by that ever tossing main, 
Then shalt thou taste the rest prepared 

For those who have not lived in vain. 



LINES TO MY MOTHER. 

(Written in my early girlhood, just after her deepest affliction.) 



WHAT I LIVE FOR. 



I live to make thee happy, to soothe thy sorrowing heart, 

To chase away thy sadness — so dear to me thou art — 

To share thy calm enjoyment, if such a lot be thine ; 

But love, whate'er betide thee, shall round thy pathway shine. 



i6^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



In helpless infancy thy love was tender, strong and true ; 
In after years 't was deeper still — and mine shall be, for you ; 
Care shall not weigh thy spirit down, and Time shall softly trace 
Upon thy saintly brow the lines that love can not efface. 

Soft as the winter shades of e'en, beneath a cloudless sky, 
Fall gently down upon the earth, upon her lap to lie, 
So shall thy age come softly on, with loved ones by thy side, 
Lilce birds around the full-blown flower that fades at eventide. 

To me there 's beauty on thy brow and in thy waving hair — 
There 's beauty in thy sunlit eye, for heaven-born thoughts are 

there ; 
No other form could ever be so dear to me as thine ; 
No other memory could seem so human, yet divine. 

Thy living faith, thy constant hope, thy love so strong and true, 
Through many a year of care and pain, have borne thee safely through ; 
When thy tired spirit, freed from earth, to its calm rest has flown, 
Thy memory shall safely guide thy children's spirits home. 



LINES TO A STRANGER, WHOSE WRIT- 
INGS I HAD READ. 

I have never known or seen thee. 

Save in fancy's pictured dreams, 
Wlien with bright and glorious visions 

My imagination teems. 
I may see thee as a stranger ; 

Meet thee with a careless eye ; 
Coldly scan thy unknown features, 

And as coldly pass thee by. 

Yet I care not if I see thee 

Never in this world's cold light ; 

For I know thee by the flashes 
Of a spirit warm and bright. ' 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i6^ 



I have thought thee good and noble, 
With a proud and manly brow, 

Where the rays of future glory 
Circle in their brilliance now. 

And the eye Is soft and gentle 

That is beaming on my sight, 
Shedding o'er the noble features 

Flashes of a spirit's light. 
May that light shine on thy pathway 

Brightly, through all coming time. 
When the knell of buried pleasures 

Echoes forth a mournful chime. 

Years will pass, and on their pinions 

Bear my happy youth away ; 
Lights and shadows, often blending. 

Bring at last life's fading day; 
Yet will memory, oft returning, 

Bring the sunlight of the past. 
Till the day of life is over, 

And its sunset comes at last. 

With the long forgotten pictures 

Memory bringeth, there will be 
One distinct and bright as ever, 

When I gave this wish to thee : 
May thy life flow smoothly onward 

As a gentle rolling stream. 
Till hereafter thou awakest 

From life's shadowy, mystic dream. 



i66 Poetry and Prose of Maine R. Butler. 



A WISH, 

FOR A FRIEND, WHO REQUESTED IT. 

If wish of mine to thee could prove 

A blessing or a prophecy, 
Where'er thy onward steps should move, 

Earth's choicest gifts should wait for thee ; 
Love, truth and purity entwine 
A holy wreath for thee and thine. 

And should some transient sorrows glide, 

Thy future life to overcast, 
Higher, sublimer, purified. 

Thy lamp of life should shine at last ; 
No darkening passions e'er should roll 
Their midnight surges o'er thy soul. 

Each passing year should bear the trace 
Of high resolves and thoughts sublime. 

Outstretching through the realms of space. 
Beyond the mystic bounds of time — 

Of hopes fulfilled and labor done, 

Life's battles nobly fought and won. 

Then calmly wait the angels' time 

To go serenely to thy rest ; 
To learn the mysteries sublime 

Within the kingdom of the blest ; 
To lay thy earth-born honors down, 
And in their place accept a crown. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Biitler. idy 



LINES TO MY SISTER. 

(On the Eve of her Sixteenth Birthday.) 

Sister, another year has passed — passed silently to-day — 

To mingle with thy girlhood years that all are passed away. 

Sister, while walking year by year thy happy girlhood hours, 

I 've wished thou mightest ever find thy pathway strewn with flowers. 

As we were sitting side by side, before you said " Good-night! " 
I looked into your fresh young face, your well-like eye of light ; 
A smile was playing on your lips ; and. Sister, do you know 
I wished the weary years might have the power of smiling so. 

Not much of time has passed for thee — thy life has just begun — 
And many years may come and pass ere its last cycle 's run ; 
But though thy feet may weary tread earth's dark and tangled wild, 
Still keep thy spirit pure and fresh — at heart a little child. 

I 'm thinking. Sister, of the years far in the distance now, 
And hoping Time will softly write his record on thy brow; 
But oh ! a dearer, sweeter wish can a sister's love impart : 
May angels trace in living light their record on thy heart. 



LINES 

WRITTEN IN A FRIEND's ALBUM. 

Thy life 's a garden bright and fair, 
Thy hopes, the roses blooming there ; 
And softly in youth's morning sun 
They ope their petals one by one. 



i68 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



But hopes, like roses, bloom and fade, 
As years pass on in sun and shade ; 
The brightest ones may fall apart 
To die upon thy withered heart. 

But as the odor of the flowers 
Is sweetest in their dying hours. 
And as the perfume of the rose 
Is sweetest at the evening's close, 

So may thy hopes, though dying, shed 
Divinest incense round thy head ; 
And may they at life's evening close, 
Be sweeter than the faded rose. 



LONELINESS. 

Are there none on earth to love me, 
When this world is all so fair. 

Blue and bright the sky above me„ 
Sweet and soft the balmy air? 

Sunshine on the lawn is straying, 
Sunshine trembles in my hair, 

And its golden beams are playing 
All around me everywhere ; 

Yet my soul has vainly striven 

One bright sunbeam e'er to win — 

One to light my spirit's heaven, 
Or the lonely heart within. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i6g 



A DREAM OF THE PAST. 

As the stars in their glory gem the night 

In tlie azure realms above, 
As the roses brighten on pallid cheeks, 

Or a smile on the lips we love, 
As the sunbeams come from their mystic urn 

To the dark earth and the sea. 
Even so a vision of gladness came, 

A beautiful dream to me. 

My heart grew still in the charmed rest 

Of love's sweet mystery, 
For thou, in thy beauty and love and pride, 

Wert all of life to me — 
My star on the night of a loveless life ; 

My sun on its cloudy dawn ; 
My smile on the tear-stained face of Fate, 

When blushes and smiles were gone. 

I deemed thee pure, with a voice as sweet 

As the spell thy memory brings, 
With a mind that soared from the earth afar 

To higher, holier things ; 
And a heart whose strings were as finely tuned 

As the angels' harps above. 
That thrilled with a melody wild and sweet 

At the touch of human love. 

In the night of sorrow my love-dream died 
As the sunbeams pale their light, 



I JO Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



As the smile fades out on the hps we love, 

Or stars in the crown of night. 
My spirit, through many a lonely year, 

Has wearily borne its pain, 
For o'er life's barren desert sands 

Such flowers ne'er bloom again. 

Yes, thou art gone with the weary past, 

And I sit in the twilight deep, 
A mournful watcher above the dreams 

I would hush in my heart to sleep. 
I think of the beautiful lights of life 

That are fading one by one. 
And I wonder if darkness will cover all 

Ere the day of life is done. 

Our early dreams are the flowers of life 

That bloom in our hearts to die. 
For Time, stern reaper, cuts them down, 

Whether lowly or soaring high ; 
He darkens our love-lamps, though their light 

Would brighten all the years. 
But the lights of memory alone 

He can not quench in tears. 



MY SECRET. 

I know an eye, a true, deep eye, 

That never cares to rove. 
But in its own light seems to be 
Taking a miniature of me, 
A photograph of love. 



Poetry and Pfose of Marie R. Butler. lyi 



Though every face that passes by 
Is mirrored in that love-lit eye, 
They come and fade 
In hght and shade, 
Where mine shall dwell forever. 

I know a bosorr, pure and true. 

Whose bridal chamber 's mine, 
And there my image doth repose, 
The heart within the folded rose. 

Love's idol in its shrine ; . 
But should that bosom cease to keep 
My image in its charmed sleep. 
And should the rose 
No more enclose 
Its heart, 't would mourn forever. 

I know a heart, a true, deep heart, 

Within whose inmost shrine 
I reign all spotless, pure and calm, 
Not the poor human thing I am. 

But glorified, divine ; 
But should that heart e'er cease to be 
The sacred throne of love and me, 
I 'd fling my crown 
Of earth-love down. 
And trust no more forever. 



A PRAYER. 

Lord, let our strong foundation be 
Our everlasting trust, 



lyz Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



And help us that we build thereon 
With all things true and just. 

Our little fingers, Lord, we know 

Sufficient are to do ; 
If we would be omnipotent. 

We only need be true. 

On truth, where angels rest their feet, 
Lord, let us stand, and know 

How much like God, by loving Him, 
A human soul may grow. 



THE HALF-WAY HOUSE. 

There is a half-way house to Heaven, 
Where mortal feet have never trod ; 

Yet in our daily worship there, 
In spirit we may walk with God. 

And there no wailing undertone 

Rings through each sweet and happy sound ; 
And where the palm-trees meet the sun, 

They cast no shadow on the ground. 

And where the nodding roses bloom 
They hide no withered leaves away; 

For summer here is endless June — 
A thousand years are but a day. 

The cross is lifted from our hearts ; 
A crown is laid on brow of care ; 



Poetry a?id Prose of Marie R. Butler. i^j 



And in this half-way house we meet 
Our Father at the hour of prayer. 



THY WILL BE DONE. 

'T was not in words God's will was done, 
When Christ, in toil, and sweat, and blood, 

His great eternal kingdom won. 
And on the brink of glory stood. 

CHORUS. 

This world was made for labor, 
And the next — the next for rest. 

His prayers were echoes of His deeds — 
Prophetic of their future yield : 

God's blessings are the scattered seeds 
Of an eternal harvest-field. 

Chorus. — TJiis world, etc. 

How dare we look to Heaven in prayer, 

Unless we toil along the way. 
And through our daily pain and care 

Grow nearer God from day to day ? 
Chorus. — This world, etc. 

Ah ! broken-winged are prayers that rise 
Where idle feet the vineyard trod ; 

Poor stranger birds in Paradise, 
And aliens in the home of God. 
Chorus. — This world, etc. 



ij/j. Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



WAVES OF GALILEE. 

There 's a step on the shore and a voice on the sea, 
Where it breaks on the sands of the blue GaHlee; 
And age after age tells the story again, 
Of Jesus, the Lover and Teacher of men : 
He taught them of love as he sat by the sea — 
Of a life to be lived and a kingdom to be. 

CHORUS. 

footprints by the sea ! 
O waves of Galilee ! 
O winds that wander free ! 
Ye tell the story still 
Of Jesus by the sea. 

The multitudes shift like the sands of the shore. 
But the Saviour loves us as he loved them of yore, 
And his lesson of love will forever be true. 
And the story of Jesus will always be new. 
Till the Saviour shall come, in that wonderful day 
When the sea and the shore shall have faded away. 
Chorus. — footprints, etc. 



PART II 



PROSE. 



THE FIGHT OF PATIENCE. 



Some one says: " Men will wrangle for relig-ion ; 
write for it ; fight for it ; die for it ; anything but — 
live for it." True. One has only to look into a 
chapter of his own life to see how incomparably easier 
it is to oppose wrong than to quietly follow right. 

Wrangling, and even fighting, for religion is ex- 
tremely easy for most people. It is an opportunity 
for serving God and Satan both at once, which is too 
congenial to human nature to be easily resisted. To 
speak of religion as a "battle," is to put it in its most 
attractive light to many. They may be really good 
people, but combativeness craves something to op- 
pose, and destructiveness something to destroy. The 
church is fuller of Peters with drawn swords ready to 
cut off high priests' servants' ears, than of Maries to 



iy6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



wash Christ's feet with tears. Very often, too, hke 
Peter, these bellicose disciples come out of a battle for 
the Lord, and then — deny their Master; and yet, at 
last, like Peter, they would willingly be crucified 
head downward for the Master's sake. Then, too, 
there is something glorious in dying for the Lord. 
We must all die ; but it is grand to choose it. 
There is something mighty in clasping death, and 
with a kiss bribing it to sweeten dissolution. This, 
in the conception of many, is the highest triumph of 
spirit over dust, the nearest approach to a divine 
impulse. 

Men will write for religion ; and this is very easy, 
for, aside from any inspiring influence of the Holy 
Spirit, religion appeals strongly to the aesthetic part 
of our nature; ideality, sublimity and veneration, 
here find their widest field of happy exercise. 
Whether men deal sledge-hammer blows at vice and 
error — blows which, to the ecstatic sense of the hour, 
resound like echoes from Sinai ; or follow the divine 
Thought through the written poetry of revelation, or 
the unwritten poetry of nature, they have a sense of 
growing up into something grander than themselves, 
of thinking the thoughts of God, and clothing them- 
selves in garments that all men know came from the 
looms of heaven. 

Men will fight like Peter, and die like Paul ; write 
visions like the Evangelist, or valedictories like the 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ijj 



apostle to the Gentiles, and yet be too weak to trans- 
cribe into their lives Christ's Sermon on the Mount, 
and altogether too weak and cowardly to endure the 
severe drill of Peter and the long marches of Paul as 
soldiers of the cross. The reason of all this is plain. 
There is an inertia about human nature, as in the ma- 
terial world ; all forces spend themselves. 

Given a life to which the Holy Spirit has given a 
momentum and started it heavenward; first, the 
temptations of the "world," like the attraction of 
gravitation, draw it downward ; then comes the fric- 
tion of the air, or the devil — "the prince of the power 
of the air" — and lastly, the inertia of human flesh. 

No wonder, then, that the Christian, with these 
three powerful and subtile agencies arrayed against 
him, finds an hour's enthusiasm, or a moment of su- 
preme self-sacrifice, easier than a life of simple pa- 
tience. 

A spiritual impulse potent enough, for an hour, to 
make a hero or a martyr, will ebb away and be lost 
in a life-time. There are lives recorded for the tri- 
umph of a day — the lives of men who died in the flush 
of an immortal victory, or lived afterward, as a French- 
man said of Lamartine, to survive themselves. And 
there are lives unrecorded, in whose quiet, unevent- 
ful flow, there was heroism enough to have led the 
forlorn-hope of an army, or have opposed a Spanish 
Inquisition. There is nothing so sublime as patience. 



iy8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



and nothing so commonplace. There is nothing of 
which men take so Httle note, and perhaps nothing 
which the angels so carefully record. From page 
to page the holy writings are sprinkled with exhor- 
tations to this crowning virtue of the life that is; and 
on the very edge of the life to be, the dying Christ 
illustrated the glory of the patience that * ' endureth 
to the end." 

Patience is the golden string upon which every 
other virtue may be threaded. It is the bridge over 
which we may walk from the sin and confusion and 
peril of Time to the calm of Eternity. Bishop Doane 
wrote : 

" Stand like an anvil : noise and heat 

Are born of Earth and die with Time ; 
The souljlike God, its source and seat, 
Is solemn, still, serene, sublime." 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ijg 



THE BIBLE STAGE OF CHRISTIANITY. 



Aa soon as the Roman Catholic power departed 
from the capital of Spain, in the person of Queen 
Isabella, a London Bible Society made an appropria- 
tion for three millions of Bibles to be scattered in 
Spain. Then, without delay, the cause was taken up 
by the American Bible Union, and now there has 
long been a printing-press in Madrid, working day 
and night, printing Bibles, Bibles, only Bibles. 

As soon as Pius IX. went out as chief mourner at 
the funeral of the Catholic power in Italy, colpor- 
teurs went with Bibles into Rome. And wherever 
the Bibles go, Sunday-schools are opened, and faith- 
ful men and women, "beginning at the same Scrip- 
tures, preach unto them Jesus." 

It is a very suggestive fact, that men do not think 
of pulpits and pulpit preaching, except in connec- 
tion with somewhat educated and enlightened sinners. 
And when we see them very much educated and en- 
lightened, the pulpit teaching gradually divorces itself 
from any element of Bible teaching, and, as a result, 
we have * ' magnificent sermons, " — sermons that, with 
telling effect, go straight to the mark and convert 



i8o Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



the iinagination of every hearer. But when, before 
the eyes of men, there opens a really great, untrod- 
den field, where sin and ignorance hav:' slept together 
for ages, they send only Bibles, and the simplest men 
and women, as mediums to bring their great truths 
into contact with the masses. 

In Italy there are some seventy Sunday-schools, 
and a Sunday-school paper, which has a large circu- 
lation. 

On the Island of Madagascar a printing-house, with 
its staff of twenty-five printers, is taxed to its utmost, 
and is unable to supply reading matter for the con- 
verts learning to read. Two thousand imported cop- 
ies of the New Testament were sold at once, and ten 
times as many were in demand. 

About twenty years ago, the Rev. Mr. Snow, of 
the Micronesian Mission, went among the savages 
with no written language. He civilized and educated 
them, caught and fixed the sounds of their words, 
and to-day is busy superintending the printing of his 
own translation of Mathew and Luke, in a dialect 
known to no other white person on the globe but 
himself and his wife. 

The Sandwich Islanders are a Bible-reading people ; 
Chinese Bibles are printed in Pekin ; copies of the 
Holy Scriptures are now sold in Constantinople and 
in Rome; in the royal palace of Antananarivo, 
the Queen of Madagascar, like another Queen of 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i8i 



Sheba, listens to the words of One greater than 
Solomon. 

On the Island of Madagascar there are five mil- 
lions of people who are so much interested in the 
new movement, that in many places they are actu- 
ally erecting church-buildings in advance, to await 
the missionaries who are coming to tell them of the 
great "new God"; yet — with all the simplicity and 
strength of those two great men — no one wishes that 
Spurgeon or Beecher could be sent among them : we 
only think of Bibles, Bibles, battalions of Bibles. 
We learn that an ' ' English ' bishop, ' with a full 
staff," is to be sent out to the island, upon which the 
Independent oh^Qx^f^s'. " Offenses must come, but woe 
to him by whom the offense cometh." 

Ah ! why, when we have carried our Bibles to the 
end of the earth, must we follow them up with our 
theology? All primitive churches are a sort of Sun- 
day-schools, or, if we like the name better, Bible- 
classes, and the missionaries are simply Bible-readers 
and teachers. The Word of God is considered, 
among Protestant people, as the center and circum- 
ference of all we are to know among the heathen. 
No dust gathers upon its leaves. But, this founda- 
tion once laid, "evangelical religion," "orthodoxy" 
and theology in its hundred shapes, come in to "per- 
fect" the work ; and, that the " man of God may be 
pefect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works," 



i82 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



the Bible is overlaid with a prayer-book, a creed, a 
confession of faith, a discipline, and all manner of 
codicils to the last "will and testament," until it is 
well nigh buried out of sight. Then, like the trans- 
formations of a dream, the ''little children" of all 
ages grow up out of the Bible-class stage of Christi- 
anity, into the full stature of men and women in — • 
theology, and the missionaries, the Bible-readers, ' ' de- 
crease, " like John the Baptist, ''having made 
straight ways for the " — great preachers who preach 
"magnificent sermons," and the bishops who muster 
in, according to the "apostoHc rite of confirmation, " 
the troops of the King Eternal that are led by the 
"Prince of Peace. " 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i8j 



THESE TEMPLES. 

It is said that in China a doctor's fee is limited by- 
law to eight cents. Let us be thankful that no such 
a law obtains here. While doctors' fees are large, 
society is preserved from the consequences of an in- 
clination to be overdosed. We do all manner of 
violence to our bodies, and then attempt to obtain 
absolution from these reckless sins, by doing penance 
in swallowing drugs. Poor bodies, how sadly we de- 
face these beautiful "temples"! Sometime and 
somewhere, shall not even these rise up in judgment 
against us? 

Over nothing, not even our thoughts, have we a 
more absolute dominion than over our own bodies, 
and yet upon nothing do we commit such outrages. 
What a story the stomachs of some men could tell, 
of long fasts, that were not for their benefit or the 
glory of God, but enforced in the interests of Mam- 
mon ; and then feasts, against which the stomachs 
themselves entered protests of disgust and pain, 
which in due time were followed by the penalty of 
disease. And then what a witness the brain will 
be, telling of our undue use of its beautiful ma- 



i8^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



chinery, that at last has worn "the wheels of life 
away," before the Father's hand has stayed them; 
or else, of disuse and ryst and degradation, which has 
impaired them for this life and the life to come, and 
set the purely physical, animal man to reign over the 
spiritual and immortal to the debasement of both. 

Some one has said that it takes one life-time to 
learn how to live. This is as true in a physical as in 
any other sense. Sins committed against our bodies 
are sins committed against God ; and in taking care 
of our bodies we are taking care of what God has 
made very beautiful and considered very precious. 

This should even be a part of our religion. When 
we conscientiously apportion air, exercise, rest and 
food to our physical uses, we shall certainly be in a 
condition to live nearer to God. By a closer adher- 
ence to His natural laws, shall we not rise to a higher 
appreciation of the spiritual and divine, and some 
day be all the better prepared to give an ' ' account 
of the deeds done in the body " f 

It is a false religion which ignores the physical 
man. These bodies are not tents, to be patched up 
for our temporal uses only; but temples, where the 
Holy Spirit should be our guest to-day — temples to 
be raised, and dwelt in forever. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i8^ 



A SERMON FROM THE PEW. 

One night not very long ago we sat in the corner 
of a comfortable pew in a comfortable church, think- 
ing what a good prayer-meeting it was. As the al- 
ternate prayer and praise rose from the lips of earnest 
worshipers, a great and wonderful calm fell over the 
cares and toils and weary striving of the day. They 
were not forgotten, for even religion can not make 
vexations and trials seem other than they are ; but 
they were like discordant music heard a long way off, 
softened by distance and sweetened by indistinctness. 

Then one preacher rose and commending those who 
were there, exhorted them to a continuance in well- 
doing. "These meetings," said he, "are the life of 
the Church — here our duty lies. Let us not forsake 
it, but stand up nobly to the work like soldiers of the 
cross." This exhortation was good and effective, and 
fell through attentive ears into earnest hearts. But 
in one instance, at least, it awakened a train of 
thought quite on a tangent to the speaker's purpose, 
and yet not wholly unprofitable. 

Not many years ago it was customary among a 
class of good people to speak of church-going as * ' at- 



1 86 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



tending the means of grace." Aside from an old- 
fashioned beauty in this phrase, it contains the essence 
of a truth. Christ did not die to make church-goers 
of us ; church-going is not so much a duty to be per- 
formed, still less a labor to be done ; it is not an end, 
only a means — a "means of grace " — a draught of a 
spiritual tonic ; at best a glimpse by faith into the 
kingdom of heaven, and the mystery of God's won- 
derful love. 

After the spiritual birth, the Christian is fed — if 
fed judiciously — first upon milk, then upon meat; is 
this all ? If so, then he is like the man who lived to 
eat and ate to live. But this is not all. Feeling our 
hearts grow warm at the weekly prayer-meeting, and 
our souls expand when we partake of the emblems of 
Christ's body broken for us, is not serving God ; it is 
only getting ready to serve Him, a partaking of spir- 
itual food — a "means of grace" — but the end, the 
"grace" itself, must blossom in our lives, when, 
daily developing the Christ within us, we exercise it 
for the benefit of the world. Yet there are those 
who spend all their lives applying the means for an 
end which they never reach and never consider — an 
end which they die tranquilly without accomplish- 
ing. But they went to church — death found them 
within the fortress of the walls of Zion, and the 
church and the world write them down among the 
" blessed dead," and Christians speak of an " irrep- 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. iSy 



arable loss." This is true; for since their religion 
consisted mainly in ''going to church," when they 
no longer go and fill the accustomed seats, the church 
indeed sustains an "irreparable loss'^ — this was all 
they did, and now they are gone. But when a shin- 
ing Christian dies, there is a vacancy, but no real 
'^ loss;" and even the vacancy is like a mount of 
transfiguration, where the Holy Spirit hovers, say- 
ing : ' ' Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for 
they rest from their labors, and their works do follow 
thei7t. ' ' 

Religion itself is not an end: it is only a means — 
C^d's appointed stairway into heaven ; but we shall 
never reach the top, unless, step by step, we leave 
some sin and weakness behind. 

The apostle speaks of those who are ever learning, 
but never come to a knowledge of the truth : is not 
this true of us, when we attend regularly the services 
of the Lord's house, and return home to live over 
again all the sins and follies of yesterday, neglecting 
the same duties, and indulging in the same vague 
dreams of a mansion in Heaven — a mansion in 
Heaven, which may prove to us but a castle in the 
air? 

Let us regard religion as a means, and the end, 
everlasting life; but between there must intervene 
the lever of our unbroken effort, if even the power 
of God saves us. There must be a beginning of the 



i88 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



end ; there must be a spiritual life here, to blossom 
into the life eternal. 

Our religion, then, as a means, should make us 
patient, cheerful and laborious ; are we not told that 
"all things shall work together for good for them that 
love Him " ? It should make us content ; "all things 
are ours ; " we only wait for the day of our inheritance. 
We should be happy, very, very happy, for "eye 
hath not seen, ear hath not heard" what only waits 
our coming. There is no virtue which men call beau- 
tiful which should not shine in the life of the hum- 
blest Christian. 

A religion which is not false, a mere ritualistic ob- 
servance of church-going, will make us manifestly bet- 
ter citizens, husbands, wives, parents and children. 
"It can not be hid." 

Last, and perhaps most difficult of all to do, the 
daily exercise of our religion should finally wear away 
the last remnant of that practical infidelity which 
most of all retards our growth in the divine life. We 
all think we are stockholders in that company whose 
treasures are laid up in heaven, and yet our faith so 
slowly grasps the fact that, dollar by dollar, by the 
divine alchemy of giving, we may transmute our 
earthly possessions into heavenly treasures — literally 
change our earthly coin into currency of the eternal 
kingdom. We Christians, with weak, half-infidel 
lips, say : * * We know if this, our earthly tabernacle. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i8g 



is dissolved, we have a house, not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens ; " and yet, when such a Chris- 
tian falls asleep, we shroud ourselves in a kind of 
modern sackcloth and ashes called " mourninsf, " and 
write obituaries about ' ' mconsolable grief " We pray 
for strength to overcome the world, and pray sincere- 
ly, too, and then go forth into the wilderness — not 
led, but walking complacently on — to be tempted of 
the world, the flesh, and the devil, just in the hope 
of climbing the "high mountain," or standing for 
one dizzy, thrilling moment on the "pinnacle" of 
the world's esteem. 

These are some of the sins which so easily beset 
us — the dross in the gold of our religion. 

This is the practical infidelity which makes our 
prayers heavy, wingless ; and when they do not rise, 
we too often conclude that we have asked for some- 
thing which it is not the Lord's will to grant us, and 
thus beget a habit of prayer in which the soul only 
half expects its petition, and then we call this ^de- 
signation,'' which is truly infidelity. 

Ah ! if we only lived our religion in the small de- 
tails of our daily life at home and in the world, 
preachers would not need to exhort us to assemble 
at the church. Christians would all flow together, 
as the rivers to the sea, and every Lord's day would 
be a new inspiration, and every prayer-meeting a 
half-way house to heaven. The holy vestments of 



I go Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



our religion, worn through all our hard and dusty 
work-day toil, would make it easier for us to keep 
ourselves "unspotted from the world ; " and, borne 
up in the invisible arms of angels, we should grow 
"in grace," daily more like the apostle John — not 
John, the poor exiled slave on the barren Island of 
Patmos — but John the Evangelist, looking upward 
into heaven. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. igi 



THE LEVER OF ARCHIMEDES. 

Archimedes, the ancient philosopher of Syracuse, 
once said : "I could move the earth, could I but find 
outside of it a fulcrum for my lever," This certainly 
was true. What would have been gained by it, is 
not so clear. It is a dizzy thought to imagine one 
disturbing the two accurately balanced forces that 
hold our planet in its orbit, and sending it off making 
and suffering uncalculated eclipses among its sister 
worlds. 

But Archimedes toiled on and was killed at last 
among his problems, but had never thought of 
doing it. And he bequeathed to the world his wis- 
dom and his lever, yet the world has never been 
moved, for never was the fulcrum found ; and this 
enthusiastic declaration of the ancient philosopher 
and mathematician has come down to us only as a 
curiosity of gigantic thought. 

The Philosopher's stone, the Elixir of Life, and 
Archimedes' fulcrum, have long ago been labeled 
"impossible things" — and pigeon-holed together in 
the curious brain of the antiquarian. 

Yet this heathen philosopher was a heathen 



ig2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler, 



prophet, and spoke a grand truth destined to be 
fulfilled. 

Two hundred and sixty-four years after the death 
of Archimedes, there was born the inventor of a sys- 
tem that made his words not only vast and sublime, 
but actual, possible and practical. 

But this great inventor, by a singular reversal of 
our human modes of thought, contemplated first the 
moral world, and moved it, not by arbitrary power, as 
he one day proposes to move the physical earth, but 
by a more beautiful and perfect machinery ; not indeed 
the lever of Archimedes, but the lever of Christ, a 
living faith, on the fulcrum of divine inspiration. 

In every age inventions have been regarded in the 
light of inspirations of genius, and always entitled to 
a careful consideration of their claims, which were to 
be decided not by reason or logic, but by their prac- 
tical adaptation to the end in view, and their ability 
to accomplish it. 

When James Watt, sitting beside his sister's boil- 
ing teakettle, evolved from his strange brain the per- 
fect idea of a steam-engine, men first looked on and 
doubted the power of the giant that had laid for ages 
coiled up in steam. But when once satisfied, they 
went on building them over and over and over again, 
until their combined power might, if gathered in one 
single force, be adequate to move a planet from its 
orbit. 



'^oetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. i^j 



It is so with all human institutions and systems ; 
once perfected, they stand as great models for a world 
to copy. But when even from the low stand-point of 
doubt and infidelity, we consider Christianity as a hu- 
man invention, we tangle ourselves in a mystery un- 
solved and insolvable. We see it, though with- 
out precedent in the past, yet simple and easy of 
comprehension, a system of moral machinery adapt- 
ed to the humblest human uses, yet even with the 
grand model before us, as impossible of reproduction 
or even variation, as the solar system or the change 
of seasons. We might indeed in some new system 
reenact every law, but where find an inspiration to en- 
force it ? We might build every axle, wheel and lever, 
adjust their fulcrums with a perfect nicety, and con- 
nect the whole by a strong belting of human faith ; 
but the impelling power of the Holy Spirit men could 
never reproduce ; and the vast machine, though never 
so perfect in each polished shaft and wheel, would be 
powerless to move the world from the low grounds 
of selfishness and sin up the steep way of self-denial 
for the sake of virtue and the hope of heaven, were 
there no inspired visions of the " many mansions " 
beyond. 

Yet, day by day, unconscious of the absurdity, 
men are trying to move the moral world by levers of 
human philosophy on the fulcrum of human reason. 
Humanity, unaided, would lift itself. This is the 



ig^ Poetry and Prose of Ma^ie R. Butler. 



moralist; whether we consider him as a man or a 
community, it is the same ; he girds himself with hu- 
man philosophy, inspires himself with human wisdom, 
and then seizing hold of his own girdle, believes that 
he lifts himself upon the upward inclined plane of 
morality, utterly forgetting that even there human 
nature, unsupported, gravitates downward. It is so 
with all things. By a law of the universe, everything 
tends to its own center, physical, moral and eternal ; 
it is always "earth to earth." The superstructure 
may be beautiful, the foundation grand ; but under- 
neath, if there is no eternal corner-stone, there are still 
at work the everlasting forces of change and de- 
cay, and dust sinks down to dust, despite all human 
leverage. 

Some minds who have thought just enough to re- 
alize this' last truth, and not enough to know that hu- 
man hands and brains are the levers and wheels of 
God, when used by his authority, only stand and 
wait for a miraculous interposition of divine power to 
move them up the ascending way to heaven — some 
power, vague, arbitrary and irresistible ; and failing 
this, die at last, dreaming of some spiritual Dar- 
winian theory of development in a future, higher 
sphere. 

And still Christianity stands waiting for us with 
the calm assertion of demonstrated power, secure in 
the wisdom of ages, and the strength of God. And 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ig^ 



still men doubt because it is simple, and reject it be- 
cause it is consistent with its divine origin and pur- 
pose; and, with an arrogance worthy only of pity, 
refusing to work in partnership with Him, seek with 
human machinery to compass divine ends. 

The will and the effort are human, but the condi- 
tions of Archimedes are met ; and on that fulcrum 
beyond the earth, invisible, divine, eternal, the wond- 
rous lever of human faith may raise the world by the 
puny force of human will. When we can compute 
the measureless power necessary to overcome the in- 
ertia of the solar system in the beginning of time, and 
start the planets in their courses, "To weave the 
dance that measures the years," we may conceive 
the immensity of that moral impulse which is suffi- 
cient to impel the children of men over all the fric- 
tion of the life that is, into the golden track of prom- 
ise for the life to come. 

In vain men doubt and calculate and wait. All 
power is lost without the fulcrum of the word of God. 
No human machinery will ever move the world. Man 
will never know the secrets of the power of God. But 
when we shall all place our faithful hand across the 
sacred pages, we shall, in that day, see the world over- 
coming the inertia of ages and the friction of igno- 
rance and sin, slowly rising into the perfect day, and, 
like Archimedes, we may cry, Eureka ! Eureka ! The 
world is waiting, and above us arches the grand orbit 



ig6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



of eternal life, whose center is the "Sun of Right- 
eousness," the unfathomable love that redeemed what 
it might have crushed, and left no stain on the uni- 
verse of God. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ig'j 



PILATE'S WASH-BASIN. 

Ever since Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of 
Judae^, performed his historic ablution in the pres- 
ence of the multitude, wash-basins have been a popu- 
lar institution — a means of grace under trying cir- 
cumstances. 

When the spirit of truth becomes a disturber of 
the peace by its uncompromising and inconsid- 
erate cries for just words and just deeds, we 
may indeed pass on with composure. The outcry 
is simply for a theory. But there come times 
when this spirit of truth makes grave and awk- 
ward entanglements in human, affairs, and then 
something must be done. 

Perhaps in a future age an ethical Darwin may dis- 
cover that, after all its assumption and outcry, truth 
was not truth originally, but ascended from some 
vague half-formed notions through all the "monkey 
stages " of opinion up to what it is now, a little more 
than human, according to the average specimen of 
the latter. Such a Darwin in ethics would undoubt- 
edly bring relief to a large class of men in the world 
and the church, the press and the pulpit. 



ig8 Poetry, and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



But, alas ! that day is not yet come, and truth 
walks the earth with a supreme disregard of all 
human interests, and yet, with a regal assump- 
tion, embraces and meddles with all human plans at 
will. 

Truth is inconsiderate and arbitrary, even to its 
friends ; but to one who dares to make an issue with 
it, or even question its authority, it reveals itself a 
spirit strong and terrible, with the features of Deity, 
and behind it the twelve legions of angels. Such an 
one begins with making war upon truth in the shape 
of a theory or a fact, and in the end finds himself in 
antagonism with God ; with earth and heaven and 
time and eternity pledged to destroy him, or drive 
him from his position. 

Ever since the first chapter of human affairs, truth 
has always been believed in, yet never popular, and 
no man has ever been able to find a verdict against it. 

Truth came wearing a leathern girdle, and was be- 
headed in prison ; but Herod was eaten of worms, 
and not Herod alone — to one who could read human 
faces to-day, how many of them would reveal that 
the heart beneath is eaten of worms, the penalty of 
some truth willfully dishonored. 

The "voice in the wilderness" may be silenced in 
prison, but the Christ is always just behind, walking 
steadily on to the judgment-seat of Pilate. We know 
the chief-priests and Pharisees — they live and walk 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. igg 



among us to-day ; we know them by this, that they 
love their church better than the Christ. We know 
the unreasoning multitude they rule. All these were 
there confronting Pilate, and nothing withstood them 
but a frail human body in which, to Pilate's eyes, 
centered the truth. Pilate's informal verdict was : 
"This just man;" and then "he took water and 
washed his hands." O wonderful basin ! what white 
fingers have been dipped into thy historic water ; what 
priestly hands have been laved, and what red hands 
have been made pure in the eyes of more than fifty 
generations of the children of Pilate. 

The cruel multitude, blind because they will not 
see, still shout and go shouting to their graves, and 
there is never wanting the central figure of truth ; in 
the robes of a king or the rags of a beggar, it is 
always there, and the children of Pilate are always 
troubled. With their physical eyes they see the 
chief priests and Pharisees, and the clamoring multi- 
tude; with their spiritual eyes they discover the 
"twelve legions of angels;" and when their human 
responsibility becomes greater than they can bear, 
they reach forth their trembling hands and bury their 
dismay and confusion, their human weakness and 
their divine opportunity, their cross and their crown 
in the time-honored basin of Pilate. 

O blessed basin ! for eighteen centuries, in thy ca- 
pacious depths, men have found consolation in that 



200 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



hardest of all earthly trials, when they saw the truth, 
but " feared the people. " 

O marvelous basin ! large enough to drown the 
human responsibility of a race, and yet too small to 
cleanse a single human soul. 

O treacherous basin ! rivaling in its promises the 
blood of the Redeemer, and yet unable to wash away 
a single human sin — saving Pilate from the vengeance 
of a single mob of eighteen hundred years ago, and 
exposing him to the malediction of all Christendom 
since then. Till Christ shall come again, men will 
go on saying in every language under heaven: " He 
was crucified under Pontius Pilate. " 

Of the mob who nailed their Redeemer to the cross, 
it is written : "Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do." But of the Roman governor it 
is written : ' ' Pilate and Herod were made friends 
that same day." And Pilate and Herod went down 
into history together, and the wash-basin of Pilate 
remaineth with us until this day. 



Poetry and Prose of Ma7'ie R. Butler. 201 



THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES. 

In the Querists' Drawer of the Standard a reader 
asks for and receives some instructions for making 
the bread used in Communion. 

While no institution which God has ordained should 
be observed carelessly, this is right. But, after all, 
does it not strike us how much easier it is to be care- 
ful in detail than sound and unprejudiced in the gen- 
eral — how much easier it is to observe the letter than 
the spirit of the law? In nothing relative to Chris- 
tianity is this more clearly illustrated than in the or- 
dinance of the Lord's table. 

As there is no precept, there Is, we may suppose, 
no invariable use concerning communion bread. Yet, 
as that which our Saviour used — being prepared for 
the Passover — was certainly unleavened bread, it has 
become at least a very general practice to prepare 
unleavened bread for the Lord's table. This is usu- 
ally made in a flat cake, as it would not rise well in 
a loaf. One church, of which we know, objects to 
it on this account ; and as Jesus — we are told — took 
a loaf, they also take one of ordinary bread, and care- 
fully slicing off the crust all around it, use what re- 



202 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



mains. Still, if they are very particular about it, it 
would seem that a loaf that has been cut is not even 
then an unbivken loaf, in accordance with the type, 
for the idea is not contained in the difference between 
breaking and cutting, but in that it must be undivided, 
an emblem of the one unbroken body of Christ, which 
in turn is the type of the Church. 

Those who are desirous of having a loaf, and that 
loaf imleavened, because it is so described in the New 
Testament, can not be more exact than by using a 
loaf of aerated bread, leaving the crust on ; and yet 
there was no aerated bread in the days of the apostles. 
But it is certain that unleavened bread made at home 
by ordinary means and skill must be thin, or very 
heavy and unpalatable. 

But it is probable that the whole idea is preserved if 
we use a loaf, thick or thin, and made in any manner, 
since it is then a perfect emblem of the body of Christ 
broken for sin. It is a unity. It is life-giving. 

The Jews' shewbread, more beautifully called the 
"loaves of the presence," was always twelve loaves, 
which God intended to be, in many things, distinct, 
separate and individual. It is in contradistinction to 
these that the one loaf of the Christian's banquet 
stands out in beautiful significance of the unity of the 
Body of Christ. 

Even in the observance of the Lord's Supper we 
see continually illustrations of the payment of 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 20j 



"tithes of mint, anise and cumin," and a neglect of 
"the weightier matters of the law." There are pro- 
fessed Christian churches, which observe with religious 
care to use the 07te laileavenedloaf, and let us suppose, 
with a full knowledge of its deep significance; and 
yet draw sectarian lines through the living body of 
Christ, dividing it asunder. Their one loaf thus be- 
coming a type, not of a body broken for the sins of 
the zvorld, but by the sins of the Chztjrh. 

Unleavened bread indeed it may be, to them ; but 
in the eyes of reason and the sight of God, is it not 
permeated with another leaven — "the leaven of the 
Pharisees " ? 



20^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



THE WONDERFUL WILL. 

When Christ departed to that "far country," and 
left his last will in the hands of twelve personally ap- 
pointed executors, they were divinely commissioned 
and miraculously authorized and instructed for the 
work. For this labor they were to put away even 
the hope of all things earthly, and be fed and clothed 
by divine providence ; and, borne up in the invisible 
arms of God's absolute protection, they were invulner- 
able to all the powers of earth and hell. They walk 
the earth superior to misfortune, accident, death, 
ignorance or misconception of the divine truth of their 
mission. But when their work is done, the mantle 
of their miraculous power falls from their human 
shoulders — they step from the rostrurti of divine in- 
spiration, and through violent and ignoble deaths 
fall into the arms of waiting angels. 

One indeed, St. John, lives to see on the island of 
Patmos a grand but uncomprehended vision of the 
future ; but when a dimness spread over the scene, 
and the spirit of the beloved apostle seemed exhaled 
into the glories of heaven, with him departed the last 
representative of infallible wisdom on the earth. 



Poetiy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 20^ 



But the work was done. The executors had ad- 
ministered upon the estate of Christ's immeasurable 
love, and laid down with ineffaceable clearness the 
changeless conditions upon which humanity may in- 
herit the broad lands on the river of life and the 
many mansions of the Holy City. There was no- 
thing more for inspiration to do, and a silence fell 
from heaven, unbroken for eighteen centuries, to be 
unbroken still until the second coming. 

What need have we of apostolic succession, when 
the voice of Peter and the flaming tongues of Pente- 
cost still startle, teach and warn ? Is he not still with 
us ? Not Peter in the flesh, who denied his Master ; 
nor him crucified head downward for his Master's 
sake ; but Peter clothed with inspiration, holding in 
his hand the keys of the kingdom. 

Generation after generation, Athens changes, but 
Paul ascended Mars' Hill, to stand there forever, 
speaking words of truth and soberness ; and still we 
hear the words of the beloved apostle, walking the 
streets of Jerusalem, saying: ''Little children, love 
one another." They never die. There they re- 
main — sufficient unto their day and all days to come. 
But when we have gathered up the scattered words 
of wisdom of Christ and his executors, we find them 
bound together between an unspeakable blessing and 
a withering curse, inexorable, authoritative and 
changeless. 



2o6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



And here we might stop, for it is useless to beat 
the poor wings of reason against the will of God, 
And yet it is not always impossible to see the rea- 
sons that may underlie divine legislation, and not 
always unprofitable to trace them. 

If we mass the testimony of the apostles, cancel 
all the details of incident, figures of speech, repeti- 
tions, and arguments used to enforce their doctrines, 
we have from all the same story of the Cross, crys- 
tallized into the same "form of doctrine," without 
variation of fact, faith or practice ; and yet these men 
all spoke at different times and places without refer- 
ence to each other, and in perfect fulfillment of 
the prophecies, dating back through a dim twilight 
age to the beginning of time. 

We have then a wonderful estate to be inherited 
by an inspired will, and administered upon by infallible 
executors, and witnessed by prophets and holy men, 
all down in an unbroken line ever since ''Abraham 
saw Christ's day and was glad." Is not this suffi- 
cient for human reason, enough for human hope ? 
When divine wisdom deigns to make us partners in 
the work of our own redemption, shall we attempt 
by our own vain cavils to lock the wheels of bound- 
less love? When we review every system of ethics 
or religion which the world has conceived, we fail to 
find a parallel to the unity of the provisions and the 
administration of this wonderful will. When we 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 20'/ 



think of the complications of time and place, and 
the varied skill of the many workmen, reverence is 
forgotten in a vast surprise that even in the room of 
God's providence human hands could have woven so 
perfect a fabric, "a garment without seam" from 
top to bottom. 



2o8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



LATEST FROM PARIS. 

"The very latest from Paris," whether a bulletin, 
a bombshell, or a bonnet, becomes at once an object of 
paramount interest, a sort of center for the earnest 
and intense regard of this young Republic. 

With all our American independence and boastful 
self-assertion, it is marvelous to behold the humility 
with which we lay our convenience, our morals and 
our taste, at the feet of Paris. 

"The very latest from Paris" is an argument 
against which neither wit, wisdom nor religion can 
.prevail. The most they can hope to do is, to effect 
a respectful compromise. 

Impressed with this solemn conviction, we turn 
over the morning paper to learn what the "latest 
from Paris" really is. First, in large, bold type, we 
learn that it is a most elegant little hat, to be worn 
en costume, with an overskirt which is ' ' perfectly ele- 
gant, " and has but one drawback — it is just of that 
distressing length which makes it impossible to de- 
cide whether it can, should, or ought to be, looped 
up or not. These articles, we are assured, are "<//- 
irct from Paris, and the very latest style." 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2op 



How astonishing! and here all this while we have 
been thinking of Paris as enduring all the isolation 
and horrors of a siege. We had supposed that the 
latest Paris fashions would be, not hats and ribbons, 
but mourning veils and sackcloth and ashes. 

A little bewildered, we turn the paper, and under 
the head of " Latest from Paris," we read of the ter- 
rible progress of the siege, and come to the follow- 
ing sentence: 

"It is strange and painful to see groups of well-dressed women 
looking in the windows of pork butchers and tripe shops with 
the same eager curiosity with which they gaze at ribbons and 
bonnets." 

The latest Paris fashion ! Is it, then, to be hungry ? 

Again we turn, eager to fulfill our manifest destiny, 
by learning every detail of the latest Paris fashions. 
This time we come to a description of some of the 
beautiful suburbs of Paris, where the grand old trees, 
that have waved their green banners for a century, 
to-day are cut down, to make straight the way of a 
bombshell. We could weep over the beautiful woods 
of Boulogne — weep for the weary, and the little 
children that will miss their shade for half a century 
to come. But, poor trees, could they see, or hear, 
or feel, they would long ago have grown tired of 
holding out their cool green hands in benediction 
over mad, hot, bloody Paris, that would not be 
blessed. 



210 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Trees are the friends of a great city, and Paris has 
slain her guardian angels. But this, we are told, was 
done in accordance with a military order, ' ' the very 
latest from Paris." 

But, lest we become sentimental over the old trees, 
which some one suggests will make excellent lumber 
by the time they are duly seasoned by French and 
Prussian fire, we turn again to something more from 
Paris. It is a fine engraving of the interior of the 
grand palace of the Hotel de Ville, filled with hos- 
pital-beds and wounded men, and silent, patient, 
tearless women. This is a Parish fashion-plate, but 
we have seen it before on American soil, which is 
often true of other fashions that a credulous public 
are entirely willing to accept as "Paris fashions." 
So, to-day, we are selfish enough to say, and rejoice, 
that this is not America. By the memory of the 
prayers on Plymouth Rock, and bloody foot-prints 
of Valley Forge, and bloodier pathway of our later 
years, we are constrained to pray, that never in all 
time to come shall this fashion be reproduced on the 
soil of our great Republic. 

Again our eyes wander up and down the columns — 
they rest on a paragraph which says : 

*' In Paris many hundreds of the little children are dying every 
week for want of suitable food — starved, in fact, because they have 
no milk." 

Still the Herods are slaying the innocents, and yet 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 211 



American women and American mothers look over 
to this Rama, full of weeping Rachels, and ask for 
the "latest Paris fashions." 

Is it not time this folly was ended ? Must the farce 
and the tragedy still be played on together? Have 
American women no higher inspirations than this ? 
When French fashions really came to us breathing 
the perfume of elegant Paris, they were a real temp- 
tation, and often a snare, into which economy, piety, 
and even virtue, fell, and were lost. But now that 
the spell is broken, shall we not rejoice that we 
are free from the bondage and tyranny of " Paris 
fashions " ? 

When American women, with all their beauty, 
culture and purity, clad themselves in servile imita- 
tion of perhaps the "frailest" women in the world, 
it was bad enough ; but when they only pretend to, 
it is contemptible. 

Paris fashions — we have worshipped them so long 
we can not afford to abuse them now, but may thank 
God that their imperial reign and our serfdom is over. 
Henceforth, they must be but the ghost of a by-gone 
folly that went down in the maelstrom of war. 

In Paris beleaguered yesterday, or Paris surren- 
dered to-day, fashion finds no votaries, no gods, no 
altars ; all are swept away in the great agony, which, 
in love and sympathy, let us hope, will bring forth 
a purer life for France. 



212 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Women of America, let us not rebuild these broken 
altars, but turn from the ashes and mourning, where 
the old idol has fallen, to our younger and healthier 
American society, resolving to erect a purer and 
higher standard of taste for the ''coming woman" 
of a better age. 

Perhaps, in time, it may not be for this Republic 
alone ; for when the women of America learn to ap- 
preciate the grand possibilities that lie in their cul- 
ture and their unfettered freedom, they may be the 
social law-givers of the world. They may inaugurate 
a social millennium, wherein culture and labor may 
shake hands, and taste and religion kneel down 
together. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 21 j 



A SOCIAL "RAMPAGE." 

A writer in the Gospel Advocate, growing very in- 
dignant over fashion-books, says : 

" I believe I would consent to subscribe for Mr. Godey, Harper 
or Peterson's books of filth and corruption, if they would give us old 
fashion-plates of the worthy mothers now in their graves, and at the 
same time accompany these with a stated contrast between their 
habits of useful industry and the fruitless indolence of their daugh- 
ters ; the economy of one, the thriftless waste of the other ; the hu- 
mility, shame-facedness and modesty of the former, and the daring, 
boldness and pride of the latter." 

While we can not but see that there is some just 
ground for this righteous indignation against fashions, 
we see, too, with half an eye, that its expression is 
far more fervent than original. It has become a 
fashion for a class of pious people to cry down all 
fashion and taste; and the "fashion" of crying 
down is followed quite as assiduously as other fash- 
ions are. Yet these very criers, as a rule, do not 
live them down. If men, we see them wear just the 
length of coat and width of pantaloons, that, if ab- 
surd yesterday and to-morrow, they will rest in tran- 
quil assurance, is just the thing to-day. If it is 
women who deliver this moral and religious lecture. 



21^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



they do it in bonnets of the regulation size, and 
hoops of the right dimensions. Their very over- 
skirts are looped up just right, or they think so, 
which is just as well, since it gives them the vantage- 
ground of perfect propriety, from which to lecture 
their fellow-sinners. Nor is this inconsistent. If 
these lectures are delivered at all, they must be de- 
livered from a stand-point that will be respected. In- 
stinctively every one feels this. Wo to the bold re- 
former who dares to harangue his fellow-men, attired 
in sackcloth and ashes of a by-gone style ; his bodily 
presence will be contemptible, and the absurdity of 
his appearance will creep in and mingle with his 
speech, in the comprehension of his hearers. Why ? 
Who can tell ? yet so it is ! Still there is a reason. A 
soul that is really in harmony with all that is good, 
is also in harmony with all that is beautiful, and 
would clothe even its body to delight its eye as God 
hath clothed the earth. Now comes the dilificulty. 
Our ideas of beauty are all changed and molded, 
and marred by habit. Nothing seems grotesque 
when it has grown familar to the eye. But we must 
wear something, and surely the fashions of to-day are 
quite as good as the old ones. It does seem to a 
candid observer that no amount of modesty, pru- 
dence or religion, could suffice to reconcile us to a 
toilet like that of Queen Elizabeth or Anne of Flan- 
ders ; and even turning from them to a later age, we 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 21^ 



are confronted by our grandmothers, and fall back 
in consternation and despair before coal-scuttle 
bonnets and sleeves which have assumed wild 
dimensions, after being filled with half the contents 
of a feather bed. Do we want to imitate these ? 
Heaven forbid ! The truth is, the world has not 
gone wild all at once ; it has been showing symp- 
toms of insanity for thousands of years, and the 
freaks of to-day are no more than the freaks of yes- 
terday. 

But through all these is a gleam of reason which 
is a hopeful sign for the future. Fashion can not be 
cried down, and will not be ignored ; why should v/e 
wish it to ? Let us rather mold it to our will, and make 
it serve some purpose. In other words, let us not 
serve fashion, but make it serve us. Let us make 
ourselves beautiful, that we may enlarge the sphere 
of our influence, and do this that we may do good. 
A beautiful soul — a beautiful life will make itself felt 
in the hearts of men always, but it is possible to add 
to this the subtle, silent influence of what is lovely 
to the eyes. To do this we must dress not to aston- 
ish, but to please ; not to dazzle, but to satisfy. To 
some extent dress should even be matter for study. 
We can not afford to throw away a means of per- 
sonal influence over the world, which is at once so 
silent and so wide. To say nothing of modesty, 
economy, and a hundred other virtues which we may 



2i6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



illustrate in our dress ; by the faultless elegance of a 
quiet harmony, may we not suggest in our outward 
selves the peace and order and quiet of an inward 
life, set in harmony with that standard whose beauty 
is holiness? 

We have no inspiration concerning clothes, yet we 
must wear them, make them, and learn how they are 
to be made. It certainly can make but little differ- 
ence whether, in order to do this, we buy a fashion- 
book or spend an afternoon watching from the win- 
dow those who have reproduced its suggestions upon 
their backs. Many would decide well in favor of the 
former. That this is «// wrong we know, but it never 
will be better while one-half of society is engaged in 
a mad gallop after the follies of fashion, and the other 
half in a wild crusade against them. What society 
wants is, men and women wise and patient, and sen- 
sible enough to make a friend of fashion, tame it 
down, put a bit in its mouth, and then harness it to 
do the will and bidding of its tamers. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 21 f 



PENS AND PATIENCE. 

Once when Lyman Beecher descended from his 
pulpit, after preaching his remarkable sermon on the 
"Government of God," he was asked how long he 
was preparing it, to which the distinguished preacher 
replied: " About forty years, sir." When we think 
of this sermon as being the concentrated essence of 
the wisdom of forty years, cast into a mold by de- 
liberate and patient labor, we do not wonder that 
Dr. Skinner said of it : "It was the most tremendous 
discourse I ever listened to." Gray's Elegy was 
written in a little less than half that time ; and the 
line of the Scotch Poet — "And coming events cast 
their shadows before," — was the golden product of a 
sleepless night, spent in coaxing thought by cups of 
tea. Dickens, who is said to have been such a rapid 
writer, says of himself that when he wrote "Chimes, " 
his Christmas story, he took a little cottage in the 
suburbs of London, and shut himself up for a month ; 
by which time his story was completed, but he him- 
self was as haggard as a murderer. 

From Dickens' posthumous papers we learn that 
much which an unthinking world attributed to the 



21 8 Poetry and Pilose of Marie R. Butler. 



miracle of genius, is attributable rather to the miracle 
of labor. 

Genius, says one of that exalted brotherhood, is only 
a great patience ; another says it is only an unusual 
power of concentration, which is much the same 
thing ; and this too is the verdict of Sir Isaac New- 
ton, who, from the great scope of his mental pow- 
ers, ought to be a good authority. Certainly this 
was true of NeAvton himself and a vast number of 
others, and it would be matter for curious and not 
unprofitable research to comipare the solid fame 
of a large number of great men with the relative 
time and labor spent in acquiring it. It is prob- 
able that we should find, generally, that those whose 
fame outlived their day and generation, had built 
it with patient toil, carefully and painfully polish- 
ing every gem of thought with a great faith that it 
would be set in the crown which the world waited 
to bestow. 

This is especially true in literature ; and yet in no 
other department of labor, that is not professional, 
is there so much looseness, inaccuracy and lack of 
patient and careful attention to detail, and nowhere 
is it so unpardonable. The man who builds or invents 
a machine pays the penalty of carelessness and inex- 
actness by its failure in his own hands. A bad 
picture claims only a single glance of indifference. 
But a careless, tautological and verbose writer, com- 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2ig 



pels us to give him our time for no adequate value 
received. 

When we consider the number of books already 
in the world, and endeavor to estimate the number 
that is yearly thrown into the capacious lap of a long- 
suffering reading public, and think how few of them 
have both the virtue of well digested thought, and 
the grace of accurate and concise expression, we are 
ready to groan that such a vast mob of ragged, un- 
kempt thoughts, should be admitted into the repub- 
lic of letters. Our only hope and comfort is, that 
life is too short to read them all. 

But when we come to newspapers, it is worse ; an 
editor's sanctum is like a forest in autumn, ''nothing 
but leaves." A correspondent conceives an idea, 
and forthwith he proceeds to develop — or dilute it — 
on half a quire of paper; and, after all, the chief 
merit of the production lies in the truthfulness of the 
personal postscript : " I have just dashed off an arti- 
cle for you " ; and what this obliging writer has spent 
an hour in "dashing off," he modestly expects ten 
thousand people to spend a half hour each in read- 
ing, making an aggregate of five thousand hours or 
nearly two-thirds of a year ; and all this to be spent 
on one article which he "dashed off." 

Daniel Webster once excused a long speech by 
saying, "Had I had more time my speech would not 
have been so long." For a man of Webster's gigan- 



220 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Battler. 



tic labors, this excuse may suffice ; but he who writes 
simply because he thinks he has something to "say, 
and will not take time to condense his thoughts, has 
no right to expect his readers to wade through his 
unpruned verbiage. But, you say, the man is a 
genius. Even so ; then if he is honest and consci- 
entious he will see that a time of reckoning must 
come if he dares to neglect the cultivation of those 
fertile mental fields over which God has made him 
lord and master. 

This vain and unreasoning reliance upon genius is 
akin to the old doctrine of the divine right of kings, 
and is a sort of intellectual "infallibility dogma," 
causing an incalculable amount of mischief, first, to 
the genius himself, who rises superior to logic, rhet- 
oric or rhythm, as the case may be, discovering in 
himself a power which needs not to be, cultivated by 
these ; and, secondly, to his admirers, who, con- 
founding his beauties with his blemishes, admire and 
vindicate them both. 

A man of moderate talent will often write a better 
article than a genius, simply because he depends 
upon no intellectual scintillations, but thoroughly 
masters and classifies the thoughts in his own mind, 
and then expresses them in the simplest and most 
accurate language at his command. Having done this, 
he will find he has no need of ornament ; exactness 
and strength themselves are beautiful. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 221 



Any one who can think connectedly, reason clear- 
ly, and talk sensibly, can, if he chooses, write well — 
that is, with some reasonable hope of informing or 
pleasing his readers. He may not astonish, but he 
will not utterly disappoint. But, above all, is it ne- 
cessary that he should have something to say, some- 
thing which he believes implicitly. 

Happy is he who, having written, has developed 
one distinct living idea, something that is tangible 
enough to be pigeon-holed in the brain for future ref^ 
erence. No matter if it is embryotic ; if it is an indi- 
vidual thought, it may grow up to maturity in the 
mind that gives it lodgment. We all are con- 
scious of holding ideas that were not born of our- 
selves, but are a kind of adopted children that have 
grown up with us, and these are often the most 
valuable ; for, standing upon the shoulders of an- 
other's thought, we reach where unassisted we could 
not climb. 

Lastly, when you speak or write, say something 
true, something which you will one day like to re- 
member, something upon which you can invoke a 
blessing, something which will never be a stumbling- 
block in the path of a brother, a sword in his heart 
or a scourge in his hand ; and condemn your pen 
and your tongue to silence rather than use them so 
that their edge may be turned against truth and jus- 
tice. ' * Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things 



222 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



are pure, " these do, and these write ; and year by year 
your pages, like your thoughts, will grow with the 
grace of a truer rhetoric, the poetry of a higher life, 
and the strength of a diviner inspiration. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R, Butler. 22 j 



LIFE-WORK; OR, RAISED FROM THE 
DEPTHS. 

CHAPTER I. A LITTLE MYSTERY. 

John B. Gough says that our judgments of persons 
are often utterly changed, simply by a knowledge of 
circumstances. This we know is true ; and were we 
disposed to be witty at the expense of a very large 
and industrious class of society, we might suppose 
that it is because they so much desire to have all 
their judgments entirely just, that gossips take such 
infinite pains to discover all the circumstances con- 
nected with the affairs of their neighbors. 

Could this be proved, it would at once not only re- 
move an old prejudice, but place them in the front 
rank of philanthropists. But the evidence is not at 
all clear, and I neither believe them to be urged on 
by so good a motive, nor, on the other hand, to be as 
malicious as most people suppose. The fact probably 
is, they are, as a class, a little blinder and more 
zealous in their worship of that great deity, "Some- 
thing New;" but then most of us worship this god, 
it is said. 



22/f. Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



I think it is true ; if not, then I can not possibly 
explain why, on a certain Lord's day in December, 
when the sky was not particularly brilliant, nor the 
pavement particularly dry, there was such an un- 
usually large number gathered in the little Christian 
chapel at Athens. I said "little," but it really was 
not so, but indeed too large for the very respectable 
congregation that built it ; but now that it was finished 
and a new preacher engaged, no one doubted that 
there would be additions to the flock until all the 
seats were filled ; at least, this was the remark made 
by a quiet-eyed man in the front pew of what is 
sometimes called the pious corner, to his neighbor, 
Deacon Worthington. 

"Oh! yes," replied the deacon, "no doubt of 
that, if he is the right kind of a man — a man of in- 
fluence, you know, who will draw outsiders in — a 
man of talent — why, the house is nearly full already 
— almost time for service ; hope he is prompt. They 
say he is a fine preacher — ah ! " 

The deacon did not often talk so much before ser- 
vice, but the sight of the handsome house, filling 
rapidly with well-dressed people, all eager to hear 
the new preacher, excited the good deacon a little, 
and he talked on in a quiet whisper for a full minute, 
and finally brought himself up short with the word 
''ah!" just as the new preacher walked quietly up 
the aisle and entered the pulpit. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 22^ 



At once every eye was fastened upon him in such 
a respectful silence, that an attentive heathen, with 
ritualistic tendencies, might have supposed the laying 
aside of his overcoat and gloves to be a religious cer- 
emony, instead of an observance for his own com- 
fort. 

The new preacher was a quiet, gentle man, with a 
manner so modest and appealing, that unconsciously 
the congregation settled themselves more noiselessly 
in their pews, and gave him that quiet attention 
which is the surest sign of sympathy. He read 
the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and then offered 
what seemed the shortest, yet most fervent opening 
prayer that they had ever heard from the pulpit. His 
voice was deep, musical and sonorous, and came like 
a surprise from the fair, quiet face and slender figure. 
There was, when he spoke, something unusually in- 
teresting about him. His manner appealed to their 
sympathy, his voice and words raised their expecta- 
tions and commanded their attention. While in 
manner he seemed to look humbly up to them, he 
addressed them like one who was not afraid to lead 
them in and out among the green pastures of God. 

His sermon was on the subject of the Word made 
flesh among us, and with glowing words he followed 
the " Hero of the Cross " through all his checkered 
life : the babe of Bethlehem, the refugee in Naza- 
reth, the mysterious boy in the temple, the tempted 



226 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



in the wilderness, the feeder of the multitude, the 
scourged in the Sanhedrim, the transfigured Christ, 
the Christ of Calvary, and the giver of the new law. 
In all this there was absolutely nothing new, no 
reference to any other gospel ever preached among 
men, and yet the simple, thrilling story seemed to 
pour out from unexpected depths in the heart of the 
speaker, and shook every heart upon which it fell. 
And when he came to dwell particularly upon Him 
who went about doing good, and Him who bowed 
his head and wrote upon the sand before he said, 
" Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more," 
a God and yet a man, human and yet too pure and 
modest to look even in sternness upon such guilt, 
which yet he could forgive : when he had repeated all 
this in glowing words, he had collected every scat- 
tered fragment of attention, and every heart, forget- 
ting time, and place, and speaker, felt like holding 
up imploring hands to that arm which in human flesh 
had reached down in unmeasurable love from heaven. 
The story — for this only it was, the story of the 
Cross — was ended, and after a moment's silence, he 
repeated slowly, "Come unto me, all ye that are 
weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest ; 
take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am 
meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for 
your souls ; for my yoke is easy and my burden is 
light." During the song, after this invitation, two 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 22^ 



Sunday-school children came forward to make the 
good confession, but after them no grown person, or 
"influential outsiders," as Deacon Worthington ex- 
pressed it ; but then, as a sister afterward said, ' ' It 
was truly a gospel for children — a story of a hero, 
and a hero that may be worshiped." 

After service the preacher seemed at once to sub- 
side again into the quiet, modest stranger, and not all 
the fervent greetings of his new people could do 
more than draw out a smile, or a sweet, low-voiced 
reply. Deacon Worthington stood apart, silent and 
thoughtful, now that the usual talking time had 
come ; something in the sermon had touched a new 
chord, or an old one, and made it vibrate to an old 
memory ; yet what, he could not tell, except that it 
was something sweet, sad, and long past. By this 
time, seeing that the hand-shakings were subsiding, 
and the pastor stood hesitating and helpless between 
a dozen invitations to dinner, the deacon rushed 
blindly to the rescue of the preacher and his own 
hospitality, saying quaintly, " Bro. Arden, as these 
good people are persuading you to eat a dozen din- 
ners, I think it my duty to see that you eat but one ;" 
and literally bore him off in triumph, with quite a 
number of the disappointed candidates for that 
honor. 

Seated at his own table, the deacon grew fluent 
again ; but in vain he strove to draw out that silent 



228 Poetry mid Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



guest who sat at his wife's right hand, according to the 
deacon's stately ideas of courtesy. 

Meek and grateful to all, the new pastor seemed 
willing to be familiar and confidential with none, and 
shortly after dinner took his departure for the house 
of the brother with whom was his present home, 
pleading as excuse the necessity of preparing himself 
for the evening service. 

After conducting his guest to the door, the deacon 
returned to find his friends quietly discussing the de- 
parting preacher; and Mrs. Everett began, "Well, 
Deacon, how do you like our new pastor?" 

"Quite a pleasant gentleman — quite so," replied 
the deacon, evidently wide of the point, as though 
he spoke courteously at random, while in his own 
mind he was giving the subject a far deeper consider- 
ation ; but, undeterred by this, the doctor himself 
now filled up the conversational gap, with a remark 
more likely to draw the deacon out. 

"I was away," he began, "when the church 
called Bro. Arden, and have never heard whence he 
came or who he is, except what I now perceive for 
myself, that he is a man of remarkable gifts, and evi- 
dently as good and earnest as he is talented ; I was 
told you recommended him. Where did you make 
his acquaintance?" 

^ "I did neither. Sister Ada Clifton, who visited 
New York last summer, spoke of him as a beautiful 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 22g 



and earnest speaker; and this fall Bro. Wilson heard 
him in some little town there — I forget the name — 
and wrote to our committee recommending him, and 
of course I endorsed the recommendation, remem- 
bering what I had heard of him before. I learn from 
Ada that he has no relatives, and lost his parents in 
childhood. It 's almost a pity he is not married ; I 
think he would be more social and approachable." 

"Quite a pity," sighed Mrs. Everett; "he would 
have been so much more useful, and we really need a 
pastor's wife, to — " 

"To sit in the preacher's pew," interrupted her 
husband, "and put her feet on that nice little 
cushion." At this they all laughed a quiet, cheery 
laugh, all except Mrs. Everett, whose idea it had 
been to furnish one pew for the special use of the 
preacher's family. Not that it was carpeted or cush- 
ioned differently from the others, but a few items 
were added as a love-offering, for the pleasure and 
comfort of the anticipated new comer, such as a 
book-rack, with a small but elegant Bible and hymn- 
book, and a foot-cushion, just referred to. This lat- 
ter article came near being a stone of stumbling to 
one or two sisters whose hearts were better than their 
reasoning powers, for they said, * ' Foot-cushions re- 
minded every one of Catholic worship, and we cer- 
tainly ought to keep out of our churches everything 
resembling that." But, after all, the question was 



2^o Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



pleasantly settled by a witty sister, who observed 
that as long as the Bible remained in the rack the 
cushion must be harmless. And now this little labor 
of love, like many a larger one, was in vain ; there 
was no preacher's wife to enjoy it ; and to good Mrs. 
Everett the subject appeared quite destitute of a sin- 
gle amusing feature. 

" Don't laugh," said Miss Ada, who had not spo- 
ken a word before, and now broke her silence to visit 
on the doctor's bald head the whole enormity of a 
smile that had in truth gone around the circle ; 
" do n't laugh ; if we were all more tender and unsel- 
fish to each other in body and soul, how very much 
more it would mean to be members of the family of 
Christ. It 's absurd to call men and women 
* brothers ' and ' sisters, ' and then concern yourself no 
more about their welfare or comfort than if they were 
strangers." 

"That 's true," said the doctor, musingly, with the 
air of a big boy in the class who has been prompted 
by a small boy below him, " that 's true ; and in the 
church we have no love to spare; and it does occur 
to me that while we meet so regularly on Lord's day 
for the service of God, we ought also to serve each 
other through the week ; but, instead of that, with us 
men at least, the rule of life is, ' the race is to the 
swift, and the battle to the strong, ' and no man helps 
his brother." 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2ji 



Soon after the guests all departed for church ; and 
as Mrs. Worthington tied her bonnet-strings to fol- 
low, she turned to her husband, saying as she straight- 
ened the bow under her fair double chin, "Ada 
Clifton is mistaken about Bro. Arden's being an or- 
phan from his boyhood. His mother, at least, died 
very lately ; he wears crape on his hat now for her." 

" How do you know it is for kerf 

"I asked him who it was for, and he replied that 
it was for his mother, who died a few months ago." 

"Well, my dear, I can not see that it affects us at 
all when she died. Are you ready?" 

* ' No, it does n't affect us at all, but it is rather 
strange. But I '11 find out." 

CHAPTER II. LADIES OF CHARITY. 

On the following Thursday there was a regular 
meeting of the Sewing Society at Dr. Everett's. 
Mrs. Worthington, herself a very active woman, 
was the president, and during the year, one by one, 
nearly all the sisters had dropped in, making the so- 
ciety quite a success. Their object was at first to 
furnish the new church, and after that was done they 
decided to continue their work and devote the pro- 
ceeds to paying off a small debt upon it. 

After a little business had been disposed of. Miss 
Ada Clifton rose and moved that the Society should 



2^2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



devote a portion of their time and means to clothing 
poor children for Sunday-school, first appointing a 
committee to find them — a work which would not be 
very difificult — making it a kind of home missionary 
branch. 

This proposition had been laid before the Society 
three months before, and seconded by Miss Ada, but 
was then postponed until the new church should be 
completed and opened ; and now old Mrs. Webb, the 
original proposer, seconded it, but the vote was not 
carried, and the resolution fell. So Miss Ada, evi- 
dently disappointed, took up her patchwork and 
sewed on, and the conversation, at first general, nar- 
rowed down to gossip, 

"It is a very good object, indeed," began Mrs. 
Everett; "but then our church has been a great 
draft upon us, it has to be finished and paid for, and 
I think we ought to pay the last dollar of our little 
debt before we do anything outside the church." 

"Yes, indeed, " replied Mrs. Worthington, "and 
in truth I have little faith in working outside. In 
the church we have very few really poor ; the Deacon 
says in that we are greatly blessed. And among the 
poor outside, there are so few that are really worthy. 
And, Miss Ada," she went on, addressing her most 
conclusive remarks to that young lady, " if we dress 
these children of which you speak, and make 
them decent, we have no certainty that they will 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2jj 



continue to attend Sunday-school and church ; and if 
they did, it would be, as the Deacon says, more for 
the clothes we give them than the good we teach 
them." 

"I know it, but it is precisely for the reason that 
they are so ignorant and unworthy, that I am anxious 
to gather them in and hold them by any means in 
our power, until we shall have had time to teach 
them of that wonderful love which crowds out sel- 
fishness in every heart which it fills." If in this re- 
ply Miss Ada intended any sarcasm, she did not sh'ow 
it by her manner, nor did Mrs. Worthington observe 
it, or, for reasons of her own, did not appear to, as 
she continued: 

* ' Then so many among the very poor are Catholics ; 
and, as the priest, who had heard of Miss Ada's plan, 
very insolently said, the religion we teach them will 
not outlive the clothes we furnish." 

*' That^WX be our fault," remarked Mrs. Webb. 

"Well, perhaps so," said a very dressy lady, stop- 
ping to pick some threads off her flounces — "per- 
haps so, but I think, like Sister Worthington, that 
we can benefit the church far more by confining our 
efforts to our own class in society.". 

' ' But * the poor have the gospel preached to them, ' 
says Holy Writ. The poor are the legacy of the 
church." 

"Yes, Sister Webb," replied Mrs. Worthington, 



2^^ PoeU-y and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



"but the Bible says, 'The poor you have always 
with you ; ' and so as we have no fear of their 
departing from our midst, we can turn our atten- 
tion to them at any time when our present chari- 
ties are accomplished. They are at least a leg- 
acy which we stand in no danger of forfeiting." 
At this they laughed a pleasant, thoughtless little 
laugh, but a moment after old Mrs. Webb said, very 
gravely : 

"Sister Worthington, you said 'when our present 
charities are accomplished.' I did not know we had 
any. What are they?" 

" Why, furnishing and paying for the church." 

"Is that a charity f' 

"Well, \t's giving, at any rate. " 

"Is it?" 

' ' Don't you think so ? " 

"No!" 

"What is it, then?" 

"An investment, perhaps." 

"Then you think this Society is not in any sense 
engaged in a charitable work ? What do you think, 
Ada?" 

"Like Sister Webb, I think this church is ours; 
we have furnished it for ourselves, to have and to 
use, to walk on the bright carpets, to sit on the soft 
cushions, and invite our friends. Certainly it is no 
charity to provide conveniences for ourselves. // is 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2j^ 



an investmejtt for our own comfort. If outsiders con- 
tribute, then it may be giving." 

"That reminds me," said the dressy lady, "of 
my husband saying that, as he was not a member of 
the church, his contribution was an investment in my 
rehgion; and Cousin Harris, who is a great tease, 
was impertinent enough to ask him if he considered an 
investment in my reHgion a good speculation. He 
thinks I am worldly, you know." At this they all 
laughed again, not unpleasantly, but the lady laugh- 
ed herself, and seemed amiably unconscious that 
many others shared the opinion of "Cousin Harris." 

Mrs. Worthington was one of those ladies who run 
exceedingly well in a narrow groove, but who do not 
like to be convinced ; and so when the conversation 
took this unexpected turn, she was glad to let Miss 
Ada's last remark pass without further comment ; but 
Mrs. Everett, who had dropped her sewing a few 
minutes before, seemed to have picked up the new 
idea, and sat silently turning it over in her mind, 
while the dressy lady continued — 

' * But of course that is all talk ; for husband is really 
interested in the church, and he likes the new 
preacher, and last Sunday" — 

"Please say Lord's-day, " interrupted old Sister 
Downs. 

"Thank you. Well, Lord's-day — but that word 
always sounds so old-fashioned to me — last Lord's- 



2j6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



day — what was I saying ? — oh ! yes, husband said that 
story of the Cross was worth all the sermons we heard 
in New York last winter, and I am sure it had more 
effect upon me. I can not say I recollect the others, 
but I shall never forget that, even if I do grow world- 
ly, " and she laughed again, in a free, thoughtless ivay. 

"Nor I," added Miss Ada, replying only to a part 
of the last sentence, " and, oh! how I wished that all 
the poor, ignorant people around us could have heard 
that sermon last Lord's-day. It was a sermon suited 
to the poor and ignorant." 

"Well, I think it suited us, too, and" — 

' ' Certainly, a gospel sermon suits every ojte, but 
debates and lectures on Christianity may be entirely 
beyond the comprehension of some, and uninterest- 
ing to others." 

" Bro. Arden is certainly a gifted speaker or an 
earnest man; both, I think," observed a quiet young 
lady, * ' for when he told that old story in that grand 
way, it all seehied to start up strange, and new, and 
wonderful again." 

"Well," observed another dressy lady, the wife 
of Deacon Storm, " I am somewhat tired of hearing 
of that wonderful sermon, but what was there origi- 
nal about it after all ? Of course it was good, 
but"— 

"Well, that is all any of us said," laughed the 
dressy lady again. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2^y 



"What a pity, though," continued the other lady, 
paying no attention whatever to the interruption — 
' ' what a pity that Bro. Arden's manner is so unin- 
teresting ! He would be quite distinguished-looking in 
the pulpit if his manners were better. He has so 
little dignity." 

" He appears like one who has contracted a silent 
habit from being alone, or in study," observed Mrs. 
Webb. 

* ' Oh ! it 's not that, but what some would call * hu- 
mility,' a kind of silent apology." 

" Oh! it is only a peculiarity he would lose if he 
were married," said Mrs. Everett, reverting to her 
favorite topic. ' * He ought to marry ; a preacher should 
always have a wife. Don 't you think so, Ada?" 

" He has had no parents from his boyhood," said 
Ada, replying very indirectly, ' ' and I think mingled 
very little in society, having no relatives." 

"Are you not mistaken," asked Mrs. Worthing- 
ton, with great interest, "about his being an orphan 
from boyhood? " 

* ' No ; he told me last summer that he had lost his 
parents before he remembered." 

"That is strange. I noticed crape on his hat, 
and he told me it was for his mother, who died a few 
months ago. Are you sure he \.o\di you that?" 

"Yes, quite sure," replied Ada, rather nervously, 
"but probably we do not know all about it." 



2j8 Poetry and Prose of Afarie R. Butler. 



" I should think not," said Mrs. Storm, " but they 
can 't &ot/i be true, and it certainly looks very mys- 
terious." 

"Well," said the dressy lady, "perhaps there z's 
some mystery about him. Would n't it be romantic 
if there was? " 

"Not for a.pj'-eae/ter/' W3.S the stern reply; "that 
and his manner together do look doubtful, and I 
shall ask Deacon Storm to make a few very quiet" — 

Here they were interrupted by the entrance of the 
new pastor, convoyed by Deacon Worthington. In 
the confusion of the general introduction a great 
many threads were dropped, among them the thread 
of conversation, and the new mystery. But a great 
many curious eyes noted the band of crape on the 
preacher's hat, as Mrs. Everett politely relieved him 
of it. 

"I find," began the Deacon, "that Bro. Arden is 
very much interested in benevolent societies, and so 
I brought him here to introduce him to the sisters, 
for I believe, except our annual missionary subscrip- 
tions, you ladies represent the active charities of the 
church." 

This was intended as a compliment; but there was 
a puzzled, embarrassed look in Mrs. Worthington's 
face, and no one made the slightest response for a 
a moment, and then Mrs. Everett came to the rescue, 
saying, ' ' We are glad you thought of us, for I can 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2jg 



assure you we thought of you this afternoon, and 
spoke of you, too, Bro. Arden." 

"Yes, indeed, " began the dressy lady, "and Sis- 
ter Everett has taken a wonderful interest in you, 
and — yes, I will tell you," she pursued, with a spice 
of malice in her eyes, as they encountered several 
anxious glances, "some of the ladies are very anx- 
ious about" — she paused — "the preacher's pew. 
They think there ought to be a pastor's wife to sit 
in it." 

"Well, I am very sorry," began the pastor, with 
a tone and manner as humble as if he were making 
a genuine apology for misconduct, " I am very sorry. 
Taut perhaps in there being no preacher's wife, I lose 
as much as the ladies do. I often think so in my 
lonely hours ; but then I am used to being alone — I 
have always been." 

In these few words, spoken in that low, musical 
voice, there was something so touching that every 
heart felt a tender sympathy. They showed it in 
words of gentle courtesy, and by being very social 
as they gathered up their sewing as the twilight came 
on ; all but Ada, who moved away to the window, 
saying she could see there to finish her seam. But 
Mrs. Everett noticed that she had left her work be- 
hind and forgotten it, and she herself folded it, mak- 
ing no remark. Looking up once, she saw the 
pastor's eyes fixed thoughtfully on Ada, and she 



2/^o Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



thought from the flush on Ada's face that she 
knew it. 

They all took tea and spent the evening, and by 
the time the party dispersed they were all quite con- 
scious that whatever else the new pastor might prove 
to be, he was certainly a refined and cultivated Chris- 
tian gentleman, although peculiar and reserved. 
They quite forgot "the mystery" about him until 
the sight of his hat recalled it at the door. Deacon 
Worthington said, at parting: "Now do n't forget, 
Bro. Arden, that we are anxious to have you fill 
that preacher's pew, dedicated to you with so many 
prayers and good wishes." 

"I will do the best I can," he replied gravely. 
"Good-night." 

CHAPTER III. TRUE TO HIS TRUST THE MOTHER OF 

A SOUL. 

On the following Lord's-day morning, the preach- 
er's pew was not vacant, but in filling it the pastor 
committed an unpardonable sin. It happened in this 
wise : In making pastoral visits, the young preacher 
heard of a poor Sister Hill, who lived in some small 
rooms behind a dram-shop, in the meanest part of the 
town. Her husband, who had kept it, died several 
years before, and the widow made a little grocery of 
it ; but liquor sold better than groceries there^ and 



Poetiy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2^1 



she was obliged to give it up, and in other hands it 
became a dram-shop again. Still she rented the little 
rooms, a quiet, inoffensive woman, with a heart above 
her surroundings, and when she joined the church, a 
few years before, might have occupied quite a re- 
spectable position in it, but for her children. Her 
sons had gone in the steps of their father and become 
drunkards ; indeed, for that they had not far to go, 
only behind the "bar;" and her daughter had be- 
come — at least, so rumor said — even worse. Upon 
all these trials was heaped one more : the church 
treated her only with coldness and neglect, and after 
a year or two she came to church no more. She told 
her story very simply when the pastor called, and 
when he asked her to come to church she replied : 
"I should like to hear you, Bro. Arden, but I have 
been reading my Bible at home ; and I do n't think 
the people would like to see me in the seats up in 
front, and I 'm a little deaf now." 

' ' I have a seat to myself — that is, it was intended 
for my family, had I one; I should like you to sit 
there when you feel able to come. If you will come 
early next Lord's-day, I will show you into it my- 
self. " And this was how it happened that, when a 
few minutes before service, a shabby woman, just a 
little past middle age, walked up the aisle, the pastor 
gave her a quiet little hand-shake, and showed her into 
the preacher's pew, to the horror and indignation of 



2/1.2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



the sisters who knew all the dark details of her outside 
family history, but nothing of the pitiful struggle of 
her inner life. 

Again the young preacher filled every ear with the 
music of his wonderful voice, and every heart with 
the reflected glow of that love which, for Christ's 
sake, sees in every man a brother. 

Again, when the service was over, he sank down 
from an inspired speaker to a timid, reticent man, 
while the members crowded up in groups to express 
their varied shades of delighted approval. 

So, week after week, the pastor grew into his work, 
and thrilled them with his earnest, eloquent tongue ; 
but week by week a small annoyance grew into a 
large one, and the pastor's pew was often filled with 
what the sisters called "the lowest kind of people." 
Still they were not all low ; some of them were only 
very poor : but Mrs. Worthington said the effect was 
much the same, and the deacon added, "Very det- 
rimental to the gathering in of influential outsiders." 
Still they came, and one after another a dozen of these 
people, among them two of Sister Hill's sons, made 
the good confession before three months had passed. 
The Sunday-school was similarly invaded, and the 
rows of ragged children made weekly encroachments 
upon the seats hitherto sacred to well-dressed little 
ones. But, in spite of all, the preacher did "draw 
influential outsiders," and the house was often 



Poetry a7td Prose of Marie R. Butler. 24.;^ 



crowded ; yet, little by little, the poor young pastor 
felt that among his own congregation his popularity 
was surely waning. One or two, besides the two who 
assisted him, were in perfect sympathy with his work. 
Those two assistants were Mrs. Webb and Ada Clif 
ton. Both had for years spent their time, the latter, 
who was wealthy, her money, in Christian work. 
But, next to God, whom he so faithfully served, the 
young pastor's eloquent, tongue was his most in- 
fluential friend ; yet he sadly felt that his whole idea 
of a Christian's work was opposed to that of the ma- 
jority of the congregation, and, humble though he 
was, he appeared unwilling to yield an inch to these 
worldly prejudices. When, after some consultation, 
the deacons gave him a gentle hint that a pastor 
should endeavor to work as much as possible accord- 
ing to the idea of his people, he replied: "I claim 
no privileges because I am your preacher; I should 
do as I do were I only a member. I only seek the 
unfortunate because, with an exception or two, the 
rest do not. When I see the rich neglected, I shall 
seek them; but to all I preach alike that gospel 
which teaches that all men are my neighbors. " From 
the first they had felt that there was something about 
this meek, quiet man that made it very difficult to 
confront or oppose him ; notwithstanding his humil- 
ity, he was not easily influenced. Perhaps they re- 
spected him the more for this, but still the dissatis- 



2/^/f. Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



faction grew; the church, the Sunday-school, the 
prayer-meeting grew hkewise, but still it did not heal 
the evil. 

Six months had passed away, and the poor young 
pastor was still called a ' ' great preacher, " and crowds 
came to hear him ; but still many were poor or low, or 
in some way objectionable, to the great alarm of the 
deacons and influential members, who, in their grieved 
imagination, already saw the church filling up with 
what they termed common people. This state of 
things did not at all trouble the old elder ; but since 
he had been infirm, his office had become almost 
nominal, and in reality Deacon Worthington, on ac- 
count of his wealth and position, and other reasons, 
wielded more influence than any other member of 
the church. 

Deacon Worthington was at heart a good man, 
and in truth very zealous in the cause of religion, 
and it had been the brightest dream of his life to see 
his church rise grandly superior to worldliness, infi- 
delity and sectarianism, and teach the community 
around him what a wonderful power is a church 
founded on the written Word of God alone. But, 
like the Jews in the time of Christ, his ideas of pros- 
perity and power were founded too much upon world- 
ly grandeur and worldly influence — as if God need- 
ed them ; or, needing them, would not have pointed 
to them in His Will. When the new church was 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2^§ 



completed and a fine speaker installed, the Deacon 
saw his dream in the way of rapid fulfillment ; but 
now he alm^ost groaned aloud to see the long rows of 
shabby people, some of them with shabby reputa- 
tions, sitting before his insulted eyes. After a great 
deal of quiet consultation with the officers, a dea- 
cons' meeting was called for the purpose of seeing 
what could be done. They made a last vain ap- 
peal to the preacher, and his reply was : "I only go 
where duty calls me ; when I invite hearers I dare 7tot 
omit those whom my Master called. Send me where 
you will to invite sinners here, but send another to 
invite them away." 

All this fell very heavily on the heart of the de- 
voted young pastor; but still he went about doing 
good, following so closely in the steps of his Master 
that, like him, he was reproached for "eating with 
publicans and sinners." 

In the midst of all this, a darker cloud fell and 
seemed for a time to lower between him and his few 
faithful friends in the congregation. Only one never 
forgot to pray for him with silent devotion, always 
believed in him, and always would ; and that one was 
Ada Clifton. From week to week his face was her 
comfort, and her face was his inspiration amid dis- 
couragement and isolation. The cloud was a num- 
ber of very vague, dark rumors, respecting the preach- 
er's past life; and they all came from this: Accord- 



24-6 Poctjy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



ing to promise, Mrs. Storm and the Deacon had made 
some "very quiet inquiries" concerning the pastor's 
antecedents, for the purpose principally of settling 
the question of the date of his mother's death and 
learning of his family. They had made them very 
quietly indeed ; but besides Deacon Storm and his wife 
and Mrs. Worthington, a dozen gossips, men as well 
as women (for gossips are of both sexes), had re- 
solved themselves into a volunteer committee to push 
the inquiry. They learned that the young preacher 
had for some years been a faithful, earnest missionary 
in New York City, preaching in the Reform schools 
and Bethel churches, and when his health failed, vis- 
ited western New York, preaching wherever he went. 
They learned all this and no more. Whether the 
congregation woke up some morning and told its 
dreams, or whether the gossips talked in their sleep, 
is not known ; but this simple account at last ex- 
panded into vague, wonderful stories : according to 
one of them, the pastor had deserted his mother 
until she died of grief; another hinted that he was 
an impostor, wearing an assumed name. Fortu- 
nately these rumors had not gone far beyond the 
gossips themselves, and a few ^^ interested'' people 
in the church, but they had reached the pastor's ears 
and crushed him as nothing in life had ever done be- 
fore ; but still he plodded on, and told his sorrow only 
to God. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2^^ 



Of course, these stories reached the Deacon's ears, 
and at the next officers' meeting were referred to. 
None of them attached much importance to such 
vague trifles; but Deacon Worthington urged that 
as there were graver reasons why the pastor did not 
suit them in his work, it would be best, on every 
account, to sever the connection. Many objected. 
Some were really attached to the devoted and pious 
young pastor ; others only saw in him two qualifica- 
tions not always found together — wonderful elo- 
quence and the zeal of an earnest, faithful-- laborer in 
the vineyard of God. But Deacon Worthington pre- 
vailed, and at last they decided to remove the pastor. 
For the sake of appearances, they concluded to give 
him, instead of a formal dismissal, a recommendation 
to the Missionary Board, for which he was indeed 
well fitted ; and the next annual meeting was the 
time appointed for laying the matter before the 
congregation. 

As the time approached. Deacon Worthington felt 
very nervous about the matter, for his influence, oper- 
ating strongly from the first, had finally carried the 
decision against the pastor. Not that he regretted 
it, yet he could not put away the thought that his 
responsibility in this affair would some day tell heav- 
ily for good or ill in his account with heaven. 

On the appointed night there was a large attend- 
ance. A few came to say some strong words in favor 



2^8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



of retaining their faithful pastor; a few, who had al- 
ready done their worst, only to sit still and vote ; but 
still a greater number came only intending to hear 
everything with that sublime indifference which does 
not speak unless questioned, and then replies : "Oh ! 
whatever the rest do, I shall be quite satisfied." 

On the night in question, immediately after the 
opening services, to the surprise of all, the pastor 
rose and requested permission to make the first re- 
marks, and then said : 

"Brethren, when six months ago you called me 
to be your preacher, I accepted with joy. I expected 
to be very happy among you if I pleased you, but I 
have failed. Yet before I go away to my old field 
again, I desire, for good reasons, to tell you my story. 
Some here," he added significantly, yet kindly, "will 
be interested in hearing it, a few may be happier or 
better; I will make it tedious to none. 

"Where my eyes first opened to the light, I do 
not know, but I remember life as it appeared to me 
from the low door-stone of a small dram-shop in a 
squalid alley in New York. I never knew how it 
might have appeared from a mother's lap, and day by 
day I sat there in the sunshine and watched coarse 
drunken men and haggard women pass by, or lis- 
tened to the din within doors behind me. I can not 
remember that any one ever cared for me, till one 
bright day" — and he clasped his hands, speaking 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 24.^ 



slowly — "it was bright then, and will be bright in 
my memory forever — a beautiful lady who passed 
almost every day, but hitherto always went by — to 
me like an angel from another sphere — stopped and 
spoke to me sweet, petting words which I scarcely 
understood. Her eyes filled with tears, and she en- 
tered the dram-shop, but in a few moments came out 
again, and, wiping my face with her handkerchief, 
kissed me, and then without a word took me with 
her just as I was, hatless, shoeless, friendless, from 
my home on the door-stone. 

" She went on first to a mission-school, and, watch- 
ing her all that summer afternoon passing up and 
down among rows of ragged little children, I caught 
my first idea of love. But I was too young for this 
place. She took me home and cared for me a few 
days herself, then put me in an asylum, from there 
to a school, then to an institution out of the city, 
where she often visited me. In all these changes 
she seemed to have but one purpose in view, that pur- 
pose centering in myself. 

" So I grew up to boyhood, loving her with a de- 
votion that I can not describe. For her sake, no 
place was solitary or strange to me. Where her 
hand placed me I was certain to stay, feeling always 
that my real home was in her heart. 

' ' When I was sixteen, my loving guardian died. I 
was not with her, but she did not forget me. I re- 



2^0 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



ceived a loving farewell letter, dated a few weeks be- 
fore her death. In this letter she informed me that 
I had been provided with a scholarship in one of our 
best colleges, and means to support myself while I 
finished my studies. 

"Her concluding words were a solemn charge: 
' Now, my son in Christ, who has so far rewarded 
my watchful care, and never disappointed my love, I 
have done all I can for you in this world, and in return 
it is my wish — ' for this purpose have I raised thee up' — 
that you give yourself and all your life-long labor to 
Christ, to whom I nov/ commend you with my prayer 
and my love.'" He paused. There were tears 
around him, but his eyes were bright and happy as 
he continued : " So far I have obeyed her, and with 
God's help I shall try to walk in her footstsps to the 
end. 

"For years I labored in the mission-schools in 
New York and preached in the mission-houses, and 
there, through God who guided me, last autumn I 
found my earthly mother. I did not know she lived 
until I found her dying. She had heard me preach, 
and after some difficulty discovered who I was. I 
baptized her, and at last she died in my arms, and I 
have been happy ever since ; not happy because she 
is dead, but because there is joy in heaven over one 
sinner that repents. " He paused again, amid a silence 
breathless and profound, broken again by his voic6 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2^1 



saying: "I have told you my history. I have no 
right to be a proud man, and I am not, or I should 
not have told you. Now my heart will not rest until 
I also tell you the name of her whom I shall call my 
patron saint, if so I dare call any earthly creature. 
Her name is Martha Worthington. I remember her 
as she looked in those years ; I thought her beautiful 
then, I know she is beautiful now as she walks the 
Eternal City among the children she has gathered 
there, and listens to an everlasting echo of these 
words : 'Inasmuch as ye have done it tmto the least of 
these, ye have done it unto me ; and I am happy, for 
as long as the New Jerusalem shall stand, I shall be 
what she first called me, her ' son in Christ.' Breth- 
ren, I have told you my story." 

He sat down amid the profoundest silence, for tears 
are noiseless, and all eyes were turned upon Deacon 
Worthington, who sat as if turned to stone, with pale 
lips and startled eyes, looking as if struck by an ar- 
row of Providence. Then he rose and said in an un- 
steady voice : 

"Brethren, God has visited me in wrath and In 
mercy too. Martha Worthington was my mother. 
I am her unworthy son. Like Saul of Tarsus, I have 
been ' ignorantly kicking against the pricks, ' or rather 
striving against the life-work of my mother. May 
God and my brethren forgive me. Brother Arden, 
pray for us all." 



2^2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



The young pastor did not leave them, after all ; and 
year by year he grew like his work, nobler and 
grander. 

The church at Athens was filled, and if there were 
some "common people" among the number, the 
Spirit of God was there, and as it fell upon them, 
ennobled them all. This little church expanded, 
and became a power in the community, and men 
said, "They are z. grand people •/' some attributed 
it all to the preacher's wonderful eloquence, but 
those who knew best said, "No; it is because they 
all work together with God." And still they gather 
in the lowly and poor, as well as "influential out- 
siders" who will come; and Deacon Worthington 
and his wife are happy. Year by year the dressy 
lady becomes less worldly, and Mrs. Everett is con- 
tent, for Ada Clifton now sits in the preacher's pew, 
filling by the best of all rights the place of the pas- 
tor's wife. 

Bro. Arden is not at all likely to leave Athens 
until he is called to the Heavenly City, and if he has 
any fear over his life now, it must have come from 
reading this scripture: " V/oe unto you when all 
men shall speak well of you." 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2^j 



DEACONS AS EVANGELISTS. 

A CHRISTMAS STORY. 

There are two churches in Lanesboro, situated 
facing each other, on opposite corners. One of 
them has a very tall steeple, a bell, a clock, and an 
organ. Each and all of these ornaments have in 
turn been pronounced evidences of unsoundness, es- 
pecially the bell and the organ ; yet every Lord's-day 
their sound goes forth, and so do the people, who 
prosper in every good word and work, and some way 
the cause of Christ does not appear to be hindered. 
I say does not appear to be, because this I must 
admit ; but I do not wish to be considered as defend- 
ing anything so wicked and unscriptural as a steeple, 
a bell, or an organ. 

The church across the street have never added any 
of these things to the simplicity of their house and 
worship, but the congregation has twenty-one 
deacons — which the other church considers just four- 
teen too many — and, still worse, they are guilty 
of the very questionable practice of observing 
Christmas. Every year they buy a load of turkeys 



2^^ Poetry a7id Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



and a number of loads of coal, and begin a pro- 
tracted meeting on Christmas week. 

The church with a steeple does not approve of it; 
yet the members attend the meetings of their breth- 
ren across the way, and even contribute toward the 
turkeys and the coal. How all this odd state of 
things came about is quite a story. It was really one 
of the most successful failures I ever knew. 

Some years ago, when the church with a steeple 
was owned and used by the Methodists, the church 
across the way, on a certain Lord's day in December, 
began a protracted meeting. The pastor preached 
excellent sermons, though they were said to be a 
trifle too long. They were certainly earnest and 
sound, and intended to do a great deal more good 
than they succeeded in accomplishing. But the 
room was a little cold, and the congregation colder j 
the meeting did not belong to any one in particular, 
and, being an orphan, it died in about ten days, 
of neglect. The meeting closed on Friday evening. 
The pastor felt discouraged. Some members, who 
had only attended from a sense of duty, felt quietly 
relieved from both the exertion and the responsi- 
bility; others said the failure was a great shame. 
Among this latter class were the usual number of 
people who had done nothing whatever to advance 
the interests of the meeting or the church. A few of 
them were persons so unselfish that they had not 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ^55 



even once attended, to claim their share of the preach- 
ing. But these, nevertheless, thought the meetings 
should have gone on, and, thinking only of the good 
of others, pronounced the failure a "shame," The 
people walked home in groups, talking it over; and 
the next morning it was busily discussed in church 
circles, with no abatement of interest. There was no 
election just over, and none shortly expected, and at 
the time of which I speak the mysteries of the Tam- 
m.any Ring had not been flashed from end to end of 
the Republic for the instruction of our admiring peo- 
ple ; so, there being no rival subject, the unsuccessful 
meeting was the topic in many a store and work- 
shop, and on street corners, whenever two or three 
had gathered together. Some laid the blame upon 
the pastor ; others, more merciful, divided it among 
the whole twenty-one deacons. By Saturday evening 
a great deal had been said which did not add to the 
comfort of all concerned, and several went home to 
tea with an oppressive sense of having talked too 
much, and several more who ought to have felt so 
did not. 

With Saturday night came around the regular time 
for deacons' meeting. The deacons were very slow 
in gathering, and when at last eleven of them were 
assembled, an outsider would have supposed that 
they had met to talk over the unsuccessful meeting 
again. Just as the discussion was once more pro- 



2^6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



gressing finely, and in a fair way to become personal 
and unpleasant, Deacon Headly came in with a 
heated look, which at once indicated him as the 
bearer of later news upon the distressing subject. 
Deacon Headly informed them that some one had 
told the pastor that the deacons said he was an utter 
failure, unfit to attempt any meeting, and not wise 
enough to see it. This information brought the dis- 
cussion to an abrupt close, and in the silence which 
ensued, Deacon Headly remarked that a great deal 
too much had been said, considering that it was all 
said too late, and that it was wicked to wound the 
pastor's feelings, since, with all his failings, he had 
been quite as faithful as the deacons or the rest of the 
congregation. This speech met with a very hearty 
approval, and no one thought it worth while to 
remind Deacon Headly that he himself had contrib- 
uted his full share of whatever talk there had been. 
After a few more remarks, Bro. Headly proposed 
that, without at all referring to the unpleasant mat- 
ter, the deacons should show their kindly feelings to 
the pastor by making him a Christmas gift. This 
met with approval, and the collection was at once 
taken up by Deacon Headly himself But when the 
money was counted, it proved to be only twenty- 
nine dollars. They talked over the absent deacons, 
but they were all poor men, not likely to increase 
the sum much — all except three, and these were not 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ^57 



over friendly to the pastor, having fallen out about 
the singing, and so could not be made available. 

Twenty-nme dollars! It was out of the question. 
But suppose they could increase it to forty-nine, it 
would still be a sum too small to express the kindly 
feelings of twejity-one deacons. Some were in favor 
of persisting in the effort ; others of returning the 
money to the respective deacons, lest they should 
fail at last, and the story, getting out, draw down rid- 
icule upon their defenseless heads. Neither party 
wanted to give up, and the discussion grew hot, and 
bade fair to continue, when Deacon Gray said: 
"Brethren, we did not begin right; we should open 
our meetings with prayer. Let us remedy the mis- 
take at once, and see if things do not clear up. Let 
us pray." Deacon Gray prayed — earnestly and de- 
voutly, a very short prayer, not for the spread of the 
gospel, nor for the Millennium, not even for sinners, 
but rather for the saints. He implored wisdom to 
correct all their mistakes, and love and faith enough 
to guide them all into a happier future. When the 
prayer was concluded. Deacon Scott proposed that, 
as the money was insufficient to furnish a suitable 
Christmas gift for the pastor, the deacons should seek 
out all the poor connected with the church, and de- 
vote the money to providing each with a Christmas 
dinner or a load of coal ; also, that they should ask 
the pastor's cooperation, and make him chairman of 



2^8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



their committee. Never was there a more complete 
success. The deacons all shook hands with Bro. 
Scott, and offered him a vote of thanks for his solu- 
tion of the difficulty. 

It was getting late, and some one spoke of ad- 
journing ; but as they all felt comfortable and 
friendly, they concluded to call up and dispose of the 
affair about the church repairs. This was an old bone 
of contention. The church had long gone without re- 
pairs, because they could not agree on the way they 
wanted to do it. But to-night almost every one had a 
new idea, and they were soon unanimous again. Even 
after this was over, they remained for a concluding 
prayer, and at last reached home so late that the 
wives of some of them thought if the church had so 
much business, they ought to appoint more deacons. 

The next day there was a very good congregation, 
but the pastor looked gloomy and discouraged ; and 
there was even bitterness in the way in which he 
commented on the text, " I have called, and ye have 
refused ; I have stretched out my hand, and no man 
regarded." It was plain that the preacher was ^^ put 
out,'' and no one felt much better for the sermon. 
He concluded by reminding them that the next Wed- 
nesday was Christmas, and hoped that the folly of 
observing it would not make them forget that Wed- 
nesday was their prayer-meeting night. 

As soon as the service was over, seventeen of the 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2^g 



deacons — the whole number present — led the pastor 
into his study, and kept him there for half an hour. 
When they came out there was a look of general 
satisfaction upon the faces of the whole party, very 
much as if each had proposed his favorite measure, 
and carried it. The pastor's face had lost a part of 
its gloom and all its bitterness, and though he found 
his dinner cold, he ate it with a heartier relish than 
he had eaten for a week. His wife watched him with 
surprised pleasure until he went up-stairs and closed 
his study door. She did not know he knelt down 
and prayed over a sealed letter, and then rose up and 
put it in the fire ; but when he went into her room, 
he stooped and kissed her, saying: "I've concluded, 
after all, to decline that call ; I do n't think the 
church here want me to leave, and some things look 
a little brighter ; I am not quite sure I have done my 
best here yet, and I want to try it longer." 

In the afternoon the pastor and the deacons all 
met at the church door, and after five minutes' con- 
versation went off in couples in different directions. 
Deacon Scott closing up the rear, arm-in-arm with 
the pastor. 

"1 do not suppose," said the former, "that we 
have a very great undertaking before us ; we are 
blessed in not having many poor — I think, and I am 
tolerably familiar with the church records.^' To this 
view of the case the whole body of deacons had 



26o Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



practically subscribed. If they did not know of any 
poor besides two or three regular pensioners, how 
could there be any? But Deacon Scott knew better; 
indeed, among his unsound crotchets he always held 
to one — that "a loaf was a good missionary," and 
that bitter poverty destroyed a great deal of piety ; 
hence he only replied, quietly, that a church record 
was not a very good directory among the poor. 

The back streets of Lanesboro were well canvassed 
that Lord's day afternoon, and the committee all 
went home to supper sadder and wiser men, and bet- 
ter, too. Deacon Gray told his wife of a poor widow 
with three feeble children, who supported herself by 
making nine hundred little tobacco bags for a dollar. 
" Now, mother," said he, " I've promised that you 
shall give them all a decent suit of things Christmas 
morning, so that they can come to church — they 
v/ant to come. We divided out the work, and I se- 
lected this family as your share, for I know you will 
like the poor sister." 

Deacon Headly went home and told the story of a 
poor woman whose husband was paralyzed. With 
the aid of a consumptive daughter, this unfortunate 
paid the rent of a rickety hovel and fed four children, 
by making drawers at fifteen cents apiece. "Now, 
my dear," he concluded, "let us take this family as 
our share of this Christmas business." "But, Mr. 
Headly, " interrupted his wife, " I thought you set out 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 261 



to find the poor members, and" — "Bother the poor 
members!" broke in the Deacon; "so we did; but I 
should feel as if we insulted the Lord Jesus himself, 
if we passed by a case like this, and made a chalk- 
mark on the door, ' These are not Christiatis. ' There, 
don't look hurt; I'm not cross, but a little — well, 
tired, I suppose ; and do n't give me green tea to- 
night. " 

The .pastor went home with traces of tears on his 
face. He had no appetite for supper, and let his tea 
get cold while he told his wife a long story. With 
Bro. Scott, he had been all the afternoon on the track 
of a young man who belonged to a family that 
"nobody knew," socially. He was a recreant mem- 
ber, who at first had fought bravely against the disre- 
pute of his family, but when the church figuratively 
and literally let go his hand, had descended the 
stairs of poverty and bad repute and recklessness 
into sin. 

They had at last found him and his mother and 
four younger brothers in a miserable attic, and arrived 
just in time to close the dying eyes of his father, that 
old publican, who had gone to answer for the shame 
and heartache which, from his own sins, he had flung 
backward upon his family. He had gone where their 
poverty would be considered as his crime, and his 
drunken eldest son would be the most damning wit- 
ness against him. There was nothing to be done for 



262 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



the dead now — if anything could have been accom- 
plished earlier ; no one had a right to say so, since 
none had tried it. 

There was very little comfort to offer this wretched 
mother; but this very, very little she had so much 
need of, that when she asked the pastor if he would 
pray for them, he kneeled down and poured out for 
this miserable family in one petition more fervent 
supplication than he had expended over the whole 
protracted meeting. 

The preacher looked thoughtful, and, on entering 
his study, tore up his paper of heads for the evening 
discourse, and jotted down a less copious set of 
notes, beginning: "Define Religion — Hungry, and 
ye fed me — Cups of cold water — The poor saints." 

The deacons persevered in their enterprise, and 
their work grew ; their fund evaporated, and their 
purses grew thin. They had done so much in other 
directions that they fell short on the original proposi- 
tion for turkeys and loads of coal. They met in 
groups, and talked it over ; they had great faith in 
talking things over. Finally they agreed to approach 
very carefully the three deacons who had come to 
grief, and tarried there, on the singing question. 
The result was amazing. They found those three 
brethren in consultation, deciding to volunteer their 
assistance, having waited in vain for an invitation. 
Being thus reinforced, they proceeded in decorous 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 26 j 



squads to call upon all the members of that well- 
understood but not well-defined body called the 
^^influential members y Even here they were mode- 
rately successful, and for three days Lanesboro was 
the center of an active missionary work, carried on 
strictly on the loaf-and-Bible-together principle. 
They went among all classes, saints and sinners. 
Seemingly their zeal had outgrown the original prop- 
osition. By Christmas noon a hundred homes were 
glad, and twenty-one deacons and one preacher were 
so happy and busy that their own Christmas dinner 
was a cold lunch, taken with their wives in the base- 
ment of the church. It was all they had time for ; 
but dear old Sister Scott said it was the very best 
thing that could have happened, as it would save 
them all a fit of indigestion, and put them in good 
trim for the evening prayer-meeting. Then they 
drank the pastor's health, in a cup of tea made by 
the pastor's wife at the furnace-fire. 

By this time Lanesboro began to hear of the mat- 
ter, and, in accordance with the rules of gossip, the 
versions were interesting and various. In the evening, 
the editor of the Lanesboro True Record sent out a 
reporter to gather the facts, and embody them in a 
few spicy paragraphs. 

The prayer-meeting was the most successful meet- 
ing of its kind in the annals of the church. Besides 
those whom Deacon Headly humorously called the 



26 4- Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



"regular old guard," there were present the whole 
twenty-one deacons, a thing that had not occurred 
before since they were ordained. There were also 
present one or two from every family visited dur- 
ing the week. The widow who made tobacco-bags 
brought all her children. The widow whose hus- 
band was buried on Monday came with her five 
sons, and although she was not a Christian, she 
wept when her eldest son went forward, and, mak- 
ing his confession, renewed his broken faith to his 
Lord and Master. 

Poor fellow ! he looked so woe-begone, and in 
his face were marks of a bitter conflict. Deacon 
Scott rose, with a look as if a mountain could not 
have held him down, and said: " Brethren and sis- 
ters, let us too make our just confession to this 
brother ; we forgot our brotherly love — we forgot 
to help him bear his burdens. Let us now pledge 
the united effort of this congregation to repair our 
error. Strong drink is his enemy ; let us consider 
it the enemy of the church. We will fight his bat- 
tles with him. Let us ask our Lord to forgive 
our past mistakes, and open our eyes and our hearts 
to the duty of bearing each other's burdens." 

To the endorsement of this sentiment the whole 
congregation rose, and some brother, who was not the 
choir-leader, and therefore not authorized, began the 
song, " Come, let us anew." It was just at this mo- 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 26^ 



ment that the reporter slipped in, and taking in with 
a rapid glance the crowded room, long rows of influ- 
ential members and long rows of poor, with a plenti- 
ful sprinkling of those whom he knew to be outsiders, 
concluded to remain. At the conclusion, the pastor 
simply reminded them of the appointment to-morrow 
night. This appointment was already understood to 
be an invitation from the deacons to all interested 
members to discuss a revision of the poor fund. 

The next morning the following item of news ap- 
peared in the Lanesboro True Record : 

" A Christmas Revival. — Our friends, the Disciples, have been 
carrying on a protracted meeting for the last two weelis, with great 
success. The strange part of it is that they have kept it so 
quiet ;, yet their meetings continue with unabated interest. They 
have so thoroughly converted themselves, that even their Methodist 
brethren ought to be satisfied. They have organized a relief com- 
mittee, whose field embraces the whole city. We do n't know much 
about religion; we haven't time; but we like this kind; it looks 
substantial: something like the definition given by the apostle Luke 
or James — our readers will know which. The seats are free, and 
we shall drop in whenever our duties will permit." 

Whether or not the reporter did ' ' drop in, " did not 
transpire ; but so many others did, that the commit- 
tee meeting was obliged to adjourn to the large room 
up-stairs. But five hundred people, with a liberal 
admixture of outsiders, was a very impracticable 
body for a committee. So the pastor, by common 
consent, filled the office of preacher instead of chair- 
man. At the close there were three confessions 



266 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



and one baptism, one of them the widow whose son 
was reclaimed. 

During the preparation for the baptism the officers 
held a hurried consultation. Deacon Headly was ex- 
cited, Deacon Scott in tears, and the old elder could 
not speak for emotion. Whatever the movement 
was, it was evident that they were all unanimous and 
eager, and at the close of the services, the preacher 
said, without further explanation: ''These meetings 
will be continued until further notice, and we hope 
the friends who have bid us God-speed, will continue 
to sit with us from night to night; and," he added, 
in a strangely earnest tone, "let not the breth- 
ren forget to pray, lest the Lord depart from our 
midst." 

Again they went home in groups, with a new 
topic, of wonderful interest, to talk over. ^^ Bless 
fne," said dear old Sister Green, "I had no idea the 
meetings were so interesting, or I should have come 
last week, though my rheumatism was so bad." 

So the meetings continued. At the end of a week 
the Methodists began to come over now and then. 
At the end of a month, a score of them had united 
with the church. They were charmed with a religion 
at once so simple and liberal, and yet so spiritual, and 
the promoter of such good residts ; this last was the 
keystone in the arch of perfection, and as long as the 
heavens are above the earth, it will be. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 26j 



The Methodists acknowledged that they had never 
done the Disciples justice. 

The Methodist preacher tried to stem the tide for 
a time, and then went to hear, then studied, prayed, 
hesitated, and at last went over the way, carrying 
with him the whole weight of his pious precept and 
godly life, and forty more of his membership. 

By this time the Disciples were wise enough to set 
the full value upon this new element of full-grown 
zeal which came over like a tide of strength from the 
Methodists across the way. They did not reduce the 
preacher "to ranks," and consign him to a pew, 
but, being satisfied that he was "sound," they put 
him in the pulpit at once to assist their well-nigh ex- 
hausted pastor. They thought it only just to con- 
tinue his salary ; and so the wondering people of 
Lanesboro beheld a church of Disciples with two 
pastors in one congregation, a thing- very rare among 
that people, who do not always Jiave one. But as no 
one discovered that the practice was unsound or un- 
scriptural, no trouble ensued, and things remained in 
this shape till the end of the year. During this time 
the congregation had nearly doubled, and they had 
established a large and separate poor fund, and a 
regular visiting committee. About the middle of 
December the deacons held a meeting with closed 
doors, inviting only two or three influential members 
who came from the Methodists, and that pastor. 



268 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



The result was a request by the deacons that the con- 
gregation would celebrate the anniversary of their 
last year's success, by giving turkeys and coal to the 
poor, assuming the expense thereof. The church 
agreed willingly, and voted to do it every year. 

On the following week the deacons and the Meth- 
odist element had a great many private conferences, 
on a subject kept entirely secret. 

On the Lord's day before Christmas, a heavy look- 
ing document was laid on the communion table, 
which every one seemed to know contained some- 
thing of importance. At the close of the service, 
the regular pastor opened it, and read as follows : 
"The twenty-one deacons of this congregation, 
being desirous of making this anniversary of a happy 
improvement in church affairs a landmark in this 
congregation, do hereby present, with our Christian 
love, and as our personal gift, a title deed to the 
meeting-house across the way, known as the ' Meth- 
odist Church, ' for which we have paid the sum of six 
thousand dollars. 

"We would further state that in this purchase we 
are indebted to the kind offices of our Methodist 
converts, through whom we obtained these liberal 
terms, as a compromise of their just claim on the 
church property. 

"We also beg leave to recommend, when this 
large congregation shall divide, that the old pastor be 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 26g 



called to fill his old pulpit across the Avay, with the 
assurance of our entire love and Christian confi- 
dence." 

The proposition was put and carried, amid tears of 
rejoicing over all the crowded assembly ; and no one 
doubted that "the Lord was in the thins;:" 

They made an equal division of everything, and 
the congregation divided, generally following the 
preacher they liked best. Most of the Methodists 
went back to their old house. 

Some one proposed that the bell and the organ be 
taken out, but the Methodist converts requested of 
the united congregations that they might be retained. 
In a new house they would have done without them ; 
but old memories centered their, and they did not 
like to see their old home dismantled. The request 
was made in the spirit of brotherly love, and in the 
same spirit it was decided to retain them, stipulating, 
only, that they should have only congregational sing- 
ing, and that the organ shoidd always be played by 
a member of the church, and the music be tinder the 
supervision of the eldership. This met the views of all, 
and was the nearest approach to a creed that they ever 
made. Judging the tree by its fruit, the Lord of 
Hosts went with them into the church across the way 
— went with them, and tarried in their midst. 



2'jo Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler, 



ORDINATION. 

I have just witnessed what I beheve to be a very 
unusual ceremony, a regular apostolic ordination, 
by the laying on of hands. As an ordinance 
to be observed at the present day by our brother- 
hood, it is almost new to me, for which reason I 
suppose it may be to some, if not many, of your 
readers. 

To suppose any member of a Christian church 
ignorant respecting any public ordinance of that 
body, would seem to presuppose a very late induc- 
tion into the kingdom, or a very great and culpable 
amount of ignorance ; but this would be wrong, since 
in what is considered the largest, and certainly not 
the least intelligent and scriptural congregation in 
Kentucky, there has not been a ceremonial ordina- 
tion, as I learn, for thirty years ; yet, in one-third 
that length of time, one has seen in this church, offi- 
cers elected and inducted, I will not say into office, 
but certainly into the grooves of official duty ; and 
if any one noted a lack of ceremony, certainly it was 
not commented on, and I am forced to doubt if any, 
or many, did. And yet now that we have had a reg- 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2^1 



ular scriptural imposition of hands, all parties appear 
to be equally as well satisfied as before. 

Early in the present year, the church at Fourth 
and Walnut streets, in this city, elected a number of 
new officers, to be added to the old body, which was 
considered insufficient for the needs of the church. 
After the election, the third Lord's-day in Febru- 
ary was announced as the day for the scriptural or- 
dination. On the preceding Lord's-day, the subject 
of discourse was the doctrine of fasting and prayer, 
and the laying on of hands. While nothing script- 
ural can be absolutely new, yet some points in this ser- 
mon left — at least upon the less informed among us — 
the impression of novelty. To read, " And when they 
had fasted and prayed they laid their hands upon 
them," and "They ordained them elders in every 
church," produces upon the mind a different effect 
from that of being exhorted to prepare for such an 
imposition of hands upon the brothers who sit before 
and behind you, and that, too, when the brother at 
your right has been an accepted officer for twenty- 
five years, without the fact or expectation of any 
such ceremony. To return to this sermon : the 
usual scripture selections preceded the usual argu- 
ments concerning fasting and prayer ; and then fol- 
lowed a very careful comparison of texts, and some 
very clear, forcible arguments concerning the apos- 
tolic example, and the present duty and purpose of 



2 'J 2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



the laying on of hands, all tending to the conclusion 
that it is the only scriptural mode of induction into 
office. And certainly, while the argument stood in 
array before one, it seemed difficult to believe the fact 
that for a period of thirty years a large, intelligent 
and sincere body of Christians had allowed this ordi- 
nance to drop as entirely out of sight, or out of use, 
as if it died with the apostolic age. The address 
concluded with very careful, earnest and detailed in- 
structions for a fast, to be observed on the next Lord's- 
day morning, throughout the membership, without 
exception, unless such exceptions decided to remain 
away from the ceremony of ordination and the house 
of God. The exhortation to this fast, as precedent 
to the prayers and imposition of hands, was made in 
the name of such authority, and with such earnest 
insistence, that if any member hesitated about ob- 
serving it, such hesitation was not born of that hour, 
but afterward, when the echo of those sternly solemn 
words had died upon the ear. 

The sermon and exhortation were certainly script- 
ural ; and yet it is undeniable that a strong, forcible 
and authoritative attitude of speech has much to do 
with the strength of the impression made upon the 
hearers, the arguments remaining the same. 

On the following Lord's-day, Bro. Milligan, who 
had been invited to officiate at the ceremony, dehv- 
ered, as announced, instead of the usual sermon, a 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2yj 



short address concerning the occasion. After read- 
ing the Scripture referring to the selection and set- 
ting apart of officers, he made a little, very brief, 
quiet and impressive comment thereon, treating the 
subject as if it were, in the mind and conduct of the 
church, a familiar and oft-practiced ceremony, and his 
main object were only to concentrate the attention of 
the congregation upon the solemn work before them. 
I can not refrain from giving you, in substance, 
his concluding remarks, hoping I may not seriously 
mar them in quoting from memory. Though very 
simple, they impressed me as containing the "golden 
rule" of church organization and government. 
"Brethren," he concluded, "this is no one-sided 
covenant. If you have elected these officers, you 
have committed yourselves to uphold and assist them 
in all things, so far as they work according to divine 
instruction. If it is their duty to teach, it is your 
duty to be taught. If it is their duty to rule, it is 
your duty to be ruled, as far as they teach and rule 
according to the holy oracles. If it is their duty to 
do works of charity, it is your duty to make all the 
necessary provision for that work. They are not in- 
deed appointed to do the work of the congregation, 
but for the purpose of so organizing it, that it may 
most efficiently do the work of the Lord. He is not 
the greatest general who does the most fighting him- 
self, but he who so organizes his men as to be able 



2'J4- Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



to throw the whole strength of his army in any given 
direction in the most effectual manner." 

Bro. Milligan then stated, in substance, that as the 
authority to appoint officers was by God invested in 
the church as a body, only by that body coufid the 
authority to ordain them be delegated to him. Then, 
somewhat after the manner of a marriage ceremony, 
he propounded two sets of impressive questions con- 
cerning their solemn, conscientious and prayerful in- 
tentions, first to the church, who responded by rising ; 
then to the body of officers elect, whose responses 
were given verbally in concert. In the case of the 
congregation, the question was repeated in the nega- 
tive for the hearing of any conscientious objection. 
Then followed prayer; after which the officers elect 
remained kneeling in a half-circle around the speaker's 
stand, Bro. Milligan, repeating, " And after they had 
prayed they laid their hands upon them," laid his 
hands upon each of the fifteen heads, repeating, ' ' By 
the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, vested in the 
church, and by them delegated to me, you are thus 
ordained and set apart as Elder (or Deacon) of this 
congregation, by the laying on of our hands. May 
the Lord bless you, and make you a blessing to the 
church over which you are appointed." With the 
hand of Bro. Milligan was laid two others, those of 
Bro. Hopson and another Elder, newly elected here, 
but who had been ordained, and had endured long 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2'/^ 



years of service elsewhere ; and, as the three hands 
were laid successively upon each bowed head, the 
solemn formula of words, almost without variation, 
repeated over and over again by Bro. Milligan. Then 
a blessing was implored upon all, collectively, and the 
ordination was over, and gave place to that royal ban- 
quet which is only served to priests and kings, and 
at whose head, sitting invisible, is the Lord of Hosts, 
and the transfigured Christ of Calvary. 

In this account I have endeavored to be very exact 
in detail, for two reasons, which are indeed the two 
purposes for which this letter is written : First, be- 
cause the simplest description would be the most in- 
teresting to those who have never witnessed a similar 
ceremony, but could not but fail to have heard end- 
less opinions and arguments concerning it ; secondly, 
I do not presume to have any comments to offer, or 
opinions to hold — for, ordination not being a matter 
which, strictly speaking, is connected with our daily 
Christian duty, the more humble are content to keep 
very close to shore, believing that He who gave in- 
spired rules will give his Church and under-rulers 
wisdom to apprehend them. Still, as I have been 
taught that the straight road to knowledge is thickly 
set with interrogation points, I now wish, if you will 
allow me, to set up here on this subject, a number 
of those crooked little mile-stones. If I crowd them 
confusedly together, or put them in awkward con- 



2^/6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



nection, please consider that I am seeking informa- 
tion only because I want it myself; yet boldly, in 
the consciousness that any one holding out a light 
upon this subject will flash it into many more eyes 
than mine. 

First, as I have said, the Scripture-reading will, 
of course, satisfy any one that ordination, by the 
foregoing ceremony, is scriptural. Then, why is it so 
rare — some churches never practicing it at all, an- 
other resuming it after thirty years intermission, 
without (so far as I can learn) any professions of new 
light upon the subject, or confessions of neglect — 
said church having, in the intervening time, made offi- 
cers, and, within ten years, sent out two regular 
preachers from among its private members, giving 
each, instead of an ordination, a few words of solemn 
charge, exhortation and advice, given informally by 
the official speaker, who, on one of the occasions, 
said substantially: We do not ordain this brother; 
we have no authority so to do ; but we simply pray 
for him, and commend him to the work ? Now, if 
ordination was necessary thirty years ago, and was 
necessary in the same church, on the third Lord's- 
day in February, 1870, was it not also in the case of 
those evangelists and officers coming between, and in 
other churches which do not practice it at all ? Was 
it not a sin of commission thirty years, and this 
week, or a sin of omission ten years ago ? 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. zjj 



It will be seen that these queries are chiefly con- 
fined to the practice of one church, not at ail because 
they are personal to that church, but because the his- 
tory of its practice is open to me, and fairly repre- 
sents the subject of inquiry. 

One brother replies : " It is not well to spend much 
time in endeavors to decide this matter, for ordina- 
tion is a subject concerning which there has always 
been a difference of opinion. " But this advice would 
lead one to approve and cooperate in ordination or 
its omission, or, in other words, to subscribe to the 
doctrine of non-essentials, in the matter of church 
ordinances, a doctrine against which the Christian 
Church has waged uncompromising warfare from the 
beginning. 

If this ceremony is to be observed or not, opinion 
deciding the matter, then if we practice it at all we 
practice a ceremony in the name of Christ, yet rest- 
ing professedly on the shifting basis of opinion ; and 
though this opinion may, in turn, be based upon 
apostolic example, yet as long as opinion professedly 
underlies the ordinance, it becomes a sort of ritualistic 
addition to scripture text, and it is only yielding one 
step more to opinion, to lay hands upon children, 
adding, at discretion, a few drops of water. Of 
course, here we get entirely out of sight of a "thus 
saith the Lord," or thus did the apostles; and we 
are glad to return to the words, "And when they 



2'j8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



had ordained them elders in every church," etc. But 
here one of the most careful Bible-students, and, in- 
deed, one of the most intelligent Christians in our 
brotherhood at large, says that this is one of those 
apostolic institutions which were given and intended 
only for the safe conduct of the church in its infancy, 
when there were no holy oracles to consult ; and in 
the absence of the apostles, who represented in per- 
son the inspiration of that age, every question which 
arose would be liable to create division and anarchy. 
For this there would seem to be the shadow of an 
argument in Acts vi. I, and the context. 

Now, what is there to say against this brother's 
view of things ? If he is right, then we get back to 
the dilemma of finding ourselves practicing not only 
a non-essential, but an obsolete ordinance, and mak- 
ing for its observance a preparation throughout the 
membership more solemn and general than is made 
for any other ordinance of the church, scarcely ex- 
cepting the Lord's Supper. If he is wrong, then 
does not the neglect or non-practice of this ordinance 
show that we are diluting the faith with opinion, or 
stand divided upon an essential ? 

Of course, prefatory to anything else, you will first 
reply, "Ordination is not a gospel to be preached, 
or a cross to be taken up, and the lines of our daily 
Christian duty do not cross it." I know it. Yet I 
feel, in every case where there is a command involv- 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2'jg 



ing the fulfillment of the smallest part of "all right- 
eousness," there must be a point of sight from which 
it stands revealed in incontrovertible distinctness. 
That point in this case I wish and wait to see. Not 
seeing clearly, I still believe, but in a very vague, 
unsatisfactory way, vainly endeavoring to reconcile 
ancient example with modern practice, and, mean- 
while, I stand in unarmed defensive against a whole 
battalion of sectarian ritualism, at whose head is that 
able tactician, non-essential. 



28 o Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



LITTLE BY LITTLE. 

Some one says: "There is no man suddenly ex- 
cellently good, or extremely evil." 

Practically, we all know this, and yet we are for- 
ever expecting to be, ourselves, an astonishing ex- 
ception to this rule. If it were not a matter affecting 
our eternal interests, it would be matter for laughter 
— in fact, a gigantic joke — to observe the prayerful, 
tearful New Year's Eve and other resolutions which 
we make, perfectly sure that we intend to keep them, 
yet knowing in our inmost hearts that we are not 
likely to. And why not? Simply because we in- 
variably set out with the intention of becoming 
angels, and at once devote ourselves to pluming our 
wings for heavenly flights of grace and self-denial. 

But all at once life does not seem to answer our 
expectations at all ; it is not a "far flight into the 
heavenly air," but a simple matter of climbing, for 
which our wings are ill-adapted ; our plumage be- 
comes draggled, and by the time we come seriously 
to consider the matter of giving up wings in favor of 
feet, we often find that we have fallen a little in the 
rear of those poor redeemed sinners who have never 



PoeUy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 281 



tried to do more than march on "to the prize of the 
high calling." 

All this is a little disturbing, especially when some 
one who never made a failure, because he never 
made an effort, quietly recounting our shortcomings, 
says : " Do not even the publicans so ?" 

There is a spice of malice in the way the world re- 
minds us of it, every time we set out to forestall the 
millennium, and succeed in — a failure. But, after 
all, this is a bitter tonic that may do us good. 

We know by intuition that effort never ends in 
utter loss, and slowly we come to discern that Chris- 
tianity is not a matter of resolutions kept or unkept, 
not a matter of wings or of feet, but a matter of the 
daily growth of the soul — of the daily tension of 
spiritual bone and muscle — a daily bondage of our 
evil nature — a daily "keeping of our body under," 
and a daily crowning of the " holy guest," the Christ 
within us. 

Christianity is not so much a journey heavenward 
as a preparation for a resurrection. Nor do we fail 
when we break these resolutions which we intend all 
along to keep. Not at all. To have succeeded in 
keeping them, might have destroyed us ; to succeed 
in trying, may give us heavenly strength. Does any 
one doubt this ? Then let him recall just how he felt 
when he failed, just a little short of his work. We can 
tell how, he looked : he was gazing upward with such 



282 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



an earnest, longing, tearful gaze, that if God had 
deemed it for the best, a legion of angels might have 
come down to help him over that one inch of ground. 
But this was not the end in view. Yet he had grown 
better with the effort, a little stronger, a little less 
worldly, a little nearer God, a little better fitted for 
the infinite possibilities of an endless life, as well as 
*'a day's march nearer home." 



Poetjy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 28 j 



"PUT OUT THE LIGHT." 

Between the following facts there exists a singu- 
larly perfect and consistent relation. We commend 
it to the prayerful thought of all those who have 
felt their hearts grow warmer under the pressure 
of little heads, and all those who have felt their 
hearts grow sadder with the coming of feet that 
have wandered into sin : 

"The Board of Public Instruction, in the city of St. Louis, have 
passed a resolution providing ' that at all examinations, exhibitions 
and celebrations pertaining to the public schools, neither prayers nor 
benedictions shall be offered by any clergyman of any religious de- 
nomination, nor shall the singing of any religious hymns be per- 
mitted ; because such acts impress upon examinations, exhibitions 
and celebrations a religious sectarian character ;' and the Common 
Council of the city have adopted a statute providing for the licensing 
of houses of prostitution." 

Thus have these "City Fathers," in whose hands 
lie the interests of a great and growing city, de- 
liberately ignored and excluded the pure and good, 
and recognized and accepted the foul and evil. 

Christianity aside, they have committed a crime. 
Even the brutal Robespierre once said: "If there 
were no God, a wise legislator would invent one, to 



28^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



restrain the license of the people," But these "wise 
legislators " have solved the problem in another way: 
instead of a God to restrain * * the license of the peo- 
ple, " they have decided to provide, by municipal 
law, for a people's license unrestjmined. 

From the contemplation of these two facts, and 
their relation to each other, even decent moral senti- 
ment turns with indignation and disgust, discerning 
the filthy odor of " free Paris," in the days of Mira- 
beau, rather than the virtuous liberty of a sane repub- 
lican commonwealth. To men who prostitute the 
powers of a sacred trust, and thus wantonly chase 
liberty through the gates of godless freedom into 
licensed crime and shame, the prayer and praise of 
little children must be — should be — fojrign things. 

If these men of St. Louis had not, by their own 
act, shut themselves out of the pale of Christianity, 
we might, in reference to their late decision, quote : 
"They love darkness rather than light, because their 
deeds are evil." But though they have swept the 
Scriptures out of their way, as did the heroes of the 
French Republic, like them they may still retain a 
taste for poetic truth, and so appreciate the following 
oft-quoted description of their own moral retrograde : 

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 28^ 



They have insulted Christianity, stared virtue out 
of countenance, and outraged decency while selling 
indulgences to vice ; and then, what wonder — they 
have put out the light. There is no gospel to preach 
to such men, until they learn by the terrible logic of 
facts, and reap in the spiritual degradation and bodily 
defilement of their own children, what they have 
sown in this their godless seed-time to the foul demon 
of lust. 



286 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



CHRISTMAS. 

Christmas, or Christ-mass, as its name indicates, 
had its origin in the early history of the idolatrous 
Roman apostasy. As an institution, it is supposed 
to have been founded by Pope Telesphorus, who died 
A. D. 138. 

It is recorded that three times the Roman Church 
discovered infallibly the date of our Saviour's birth, 
and each time fixed it on a different day. Finally, in 
the fourth century, the question was again disturbed, 
and at the urgent entreaty of St. Cyril, of Jerusalem, 
Pope Julius I. issued an order for another investiga- 
tion concerning the day of Christ's" nativity. At 
last, after due discussion and inquiry, directed by in- 
fallible wisdom, this migratory anniversary rested at 
the midnight hour of the twenty-fifth of December. 
The chief grounds for this decision were the tables of 
the censors in the archives of Rome, a testimony 
which, strangely enough, was considered as inade- 
quate then as now, by the fathers themselves. Yet 
since that time the twenty-fifth of December has 
ruled by the "divine right" of Popes, and has been 
crowned throughout all Christendom as a very mon- 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 28'^ 



arch of days, reigning alike in the heart of the church 
and the world. 

Fifteen centuries ago the Roman peasants flocked 
into Rome to celebrate Christmas morning, and still 
the Swabian minstrels come down from the moun- 
tains around Rome and Naples, to sing carols at the 
shrines of the Virgin, and hear the three masses 
said, at midnight, dawn and morning. 

Only a little later, the early Germans decorated 
their Christmas trees of yew, just as we do now ; and 
bedizened a merry peasant with fur and finery, and 
loaded him with toys, a living, human Santa Claus. 

The twining of the holly and the oak at Christmas, 
marks the blending of this festival with the pagan 
legends of the Druids, when the barbarous but noble 
old Britons kept the first Yuletides on the soil of 
Britain ; and the Yule-log was burned and the wassail- 
bowl went round among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors 
before the Norman Conquest. 

Century after century Christmas changes a little 
with time and place, but never loses its character of 
hearty human sympathy, as a leveler of worldly dis- 
tinctions, an exhortation to all human charity, and a 
gospel of peace and love. 

From the time when Pope Julius I. fixed the date 
of the world's redemption, to the time when Pius 
IX., a bowed old man, bore out upon his shoulders 
from the Vatican forever the ark of the * ' mother 



288 Poetry a7td Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Church ;" from the time of the Norman Conquest to 
the fall of Napoleon III., Christmas bells have been 
rung, and Christmas carols have been sung, and 
Christmas greetings have gone down the centuries 
and around the world. 

In vain our wise men tell us that Christmas is a 
myth, the merest ghost of a legend ; still we point to 
Christmas printed in capital letters in every almanac, 
and like the words Anno Domini placed before the 
date on the title-page of an infidel book, we refute 
them without an argument, and triumph over them 
with our Merry Christinas. 

We sit down conscientiously to teach our children 
that, as a Christian festival, it is but adding unto sa- 
cred things an idol bearing the mark of the Beast, an 
idol still preserved amid the debris of institutions 
that fell with the shock of the Reformation, and then 
go on decorating Christmas trees and giving Christ- 
mas gifts, and roasting turkeys. And when the 
happy toil and laborious mirth is all over, these same 
little ones find us in our own cozy rooms, buried in a 
great arm chair, with our feet on the fender, tran- 
quilly digesting our Christmas dinner, and reading — 
Dickens' Christmas stories. As we follow the fortunes 
of little Dot or Polly, we think what a beautiful 
thing Christmas is, and have no idea of being incon- 
sistent. Of course not — we are never inconsistent. 
But Christmas is the very heart and soul of those 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 28 g 



exquisite sermons on the text of humanity — those 
sermons which rise so high above worldly philosophy 
that they just touch the horizon of Divine Truth ; 
and for an hour, like all the rest of the world, we 
forget that Dickens is — yes, is — an apostle of hu- 
manity, and not a disciple of Christ — at best but a 
sweet alien voice crying in the wilderness of selfish- 
ness and sin, to make the path more straight for the 
second coming of the Lord. 

When we were young, the Christmases were a 
long way apart, and very slow in coming, but like 
the sun that shines afar off, they cast a golden halo 
half around the year; so that there was only a short 
twihght of unexpectant, uneventful life between the 
Fourth of July and Christmas week, the two great 
holidays of the year. But we have grown older and 
wiser since then, and, coming as it does, oftener 
now, we have scanned it more carefully, and discov- 
ered that there is actually nothing Christian about it. 
It is a kind of Melchisedec among days, beginning 
with nothing, and referring to nothing, except that 
in a vague kind oi retrospective prophecy (we hope that 
phrase may be construed as meaning something) it 
refers back to the advent of Christ ; and certainly as 
far as Time is concerned, it bids fair to be without 
" end of days." Suppose it is not a Christian festi- 
val, at least it is a festival of humanity ; let us keep 
this one day sacred to human sympathy. 



2go Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Some time we know that the babe was born in 
Bethlehem of Judaea, and it is good for the world to 
spend one day looking back to that central axis of all 
time past, present, and to come, the great miracle- 
day when heaven and earth were wedded, and God 
first wore our human flesh. 

We look from the mouldering battle-fields of our 
own Republic, to the blood-stained valleys of Lor- 
raine, and from beleaguered Paris to the six hundred 
newly-made widows in Berlin, and see no peace on 
earth. The horrors of the crucifixion are shadowed 
more than the nativity, and despite the empty Vati- 
can, the Roman sword is still unsheathed in the old 
world and the new, to wound the living body of 
Christ. 

Ah ! if the angels that heralded the birth of our 
Lord could only come again with the power to sing 
the fierce passions of the world to sleep, it would be 
like opening the door of the millennium or the gates 
of heaven ; and whatever is most like it must be 
good. If for one day we will put away all malice 
and strife, all anxiety and sorrow, all greed of gain 
and lust of power, and spend Christmas day like pure 
and merry children, we shall be sure to hear on 
Christmas night the angels singing, at least in our 
hearts, " Peace on earth and good will to men." 

Let us put ourselves in tune with this merry song 
that is sung- wherever civilization has borne the cross. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2gi 



From Rome to the Rocky Mountains, from Merry- 
England, across the globe to Australia, where the 
December midsummer brings Christmas and the 
roses together, and happy children watch through 
the long summer Christmas Eve — Christmas, Merry 
Christmas, rings round the world. 



2^2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



WHAT OUR SOULS TELL US. 

What do our souls tell us ? Oh, many things, pos- 
sibly ; but that depends entirely upon education. In 
other words, thoughts, of which we build our faith 
and opinions, are the direct products of the material 
thrown by accident or intention into that great think- 
ing-machine, the human mind. 

Some people believe this, and rely upon it to such 
an extent that they regard their children as if their 
heads were hollow, and, like unfurnished rooms, were 
waiting to be fitted out with just such thoughts and 
feelings as their parents' mental wealth or poverty 
suggests as appropriate furniture for the dwelling of 
the young soul. 

Some vital question of life is discussed, and you 
say: " I thought long over this matter once, and at 
last came to this and that conclusion, and I intend to 
instill into my children just the opinion I formed for 
myself.'^ Very likely you do, for you are an egotist; 
very well meaning and unconscious of it, but still an 
egotist. The cause is this : you were taught in early 
youth to believe many things which, had it dared, 
your reason would have rejected then — but it did not ; 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2gj 



for your parents were true, good people, and you 
grew up to believe that all their views and opinions 
were a part of that goodness from which it would be 
sacrilege in you to depart. 

So time went on, and your soul lived in the old 
house furnished with the faith of your fathers, every 
article complete ; but year by year it became more 
unsatisfactory and inconvenient, until one day in de- 
spair you turned out every article of the old faith, and 
fitted it up with a new set of opinions for yourself. 
You had often before been tempted to do this, but 
you were deterred by reflecting how wise and good 
those parents were ; and some way, when you 
thought of this, or, indeed, when you thought of 
them at all in connection with the unwieldy furniture 
of your soul-house, every article grew symmetrical 
again. Then you gave up for the time the project of 
refitting, until at last you ^decided that it was only 
the lights and shadows of memory that played tricks 
with your eyes to deceive your reason ; and, fortifying 
yourself with the old argument (that is so often un- 
true in its application) that each generation is wiser 
than the last, with one mighty effort you turned 
every article of the old faith out of doors, and won- 
dered how you could have put up with it so long, 
and how it ever could have seemed for one moment 
anything but unreasonable. The true reason was, 
that, without knowing it, you recognized the fitness 



2g4. Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



and harmony of the old views of things when you 
thought of them in connection with the grand spirits 
who had dwelt among them. 

The unwieldy furniture that encumbered your soul 
in its free passage from room to room of your 
thought-palace, was but a part of the expression of 
their massive characters. 

Upon the broad tables they spread out plans of 
human life which your delicate hands and feeble 
muscles could never work out, and in the massive 
chairs their solid virtues sat in state, and harmony 
was over all. 

But when all this was bequeathed to you — ah ! 
there was the mistake — ^you found yourself advocat- 
ing views you did not live up to, and professing 
opinions not honestly your own, for they were not 
the outgrowth of your character, and they would 
have embarrassed your spirit forever. In your own 
blind way you saw this, and emptied your soul- 
chambers of it all. And what did you put in its 
place? Something better and more satisfactory, of 
course ! This is doubtful ; for how could you, who 
had never thought for yourself in all your life, make 
the first effort a success ? But you observed one 
rule : that w-as, to get as far as possible from the 
original style and plan. You were tired of the stern 
old furniture your soul grew up with. The very 
shadows lay like great beams across the pathway of 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2QJ 



your restless fancy, and forthwith you furnished your 
house with a faith that did not even bear the pres- 
sure of your own heart as you tried to settle down 
upon it, although you had chosen it not only for 
rest in life, but for repose in death. So it is likely 
that your first set of opinions did not long outlast 
the wear and tear of your restless soul pacing up 
and down the halls of thought. 

Then you began a series of repairs, patching up 
old opinions with new ones ; for a faith we choose 
for ourselves we are not apt wholly to renounce. 
This repairing went on for years ; but, being pos- 
sessed of considerable depth and strength of char- 
acter, you at last settled down into a state of toler- 
able composure, and enjoyed the first rest your soul 
had ever known. Your opinions are all decidedly 
comfortable articles of furniture, each in its place, 
bearing its true relation to truth and you. If you, 
have some little weakness in the shape of fancies, 
you are not now ashamed to range them in a pleas- 
ant row on your mantelpiece, like little China dogs 
and horses. Suppose they are childish and silly, 
as you half suspect them to be, you do not care, 
for the rest of the furniture will not frown them 
down or stare them out of countenance, for every- 
thing in the room is on good terms with every- 
thing else, because all is on the best of terms with 
you. Look around. All is satisfactory — yes, very, 



2g6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



from the little China dogs and horses on the mantel, 
to the great mirror of truth, before which you com- 
pose your soul's dress every day, and take an extra 
look now and then, to be sure that your "mantle of 
charity ' ' is not awry. 

But best of all the furniture in your soul's dwell- 
ing, is the great arm-chair of your religious faith. It 
is not as straight-backed as your father's, but more 
like the one in which your mother used to sit ; not 
quite like hers, because it is yours. But it is much 
the same ; and when you are world-weary and task- 
worn, your soul turns to this precious thing, and your 
heart leaps forward to the sweet repose as the wide 
expanse of arms seems a visible picture of the holy 
words : ' ' Come unto me all ye that are weary and 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." What a 
beautiful, blessed rest ! There is nothing like it on 
this side of heaven. To be at peace with your own 
soul, while it goes singing up and down the broad 
halls of its palace-home, or sits down to rest in the 
great arm-chair of your Christian faith, where often 
it comes for repose, and where sometime it hopes 
to die. 

Well, you view this home which your soul has 
fitted up for itself, after years of struggle and change 
and toil, and you say: " My children's souls shall 
not struggle as mine has done for rest. I will begin 
at once, and teach them to believe what I believe. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 2g'j 



and think as I think." But here is your mistake. 
They are not exactly like you, and their souls would 
be restless where yours is at peace ; and do not be 
shocked if even your old arm-chair would require a 
little refitting before they would find it a faith in. 
which to rest and die. They will differ from you 
even in their views of religion. Let them do it. They 
can not differ much, if both are right. All truth is a 
unit, and all faith must be the same ; it differs only in 
the opinions with which we deck it out. Still you 
can not give your child your faith ; he must find it for 
himself Do not seal him with the infant baptism of 
prejudice and error. 

God is calling every human soul ; he calls your 
child. It may be through a way your feet have 
never trod. But be silent ; keep truth before him, 
and falsehood and prejudice behind; tear up, as you 
would a noxious weed, every root of sophistry. 
Keep the soil of his heart soft and free, and the dews 
of heaven will water it. This is work enough for 
you to do. Do not try to form the plant; that is 
God's work, not yours. Keep every evil thing away; 
let the sunshine of God's love and yours shine upon 
the plant, and all will be well. God speaks to him ; 
do not dare to interpret the sacred message. Tell 
him where the truth is found, and let him talk 
with God ; then retire, and to reassure your- 
self, repeat: "He has hid these things from 



2q8 Poetry and Prose of 3farie R. Butler. 



the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto 
babes." 

As surely as God speaks to your child, he will an- 
swer ; that is his faith. It is pure and perfect and 
simple, and identical in all essential points with the 
faith of every human soul who has listened to God 
alone, unbiased by the voice of man, who has dared 
to be his interpreter. 

The formation of our religious faith is the most 
thrilling of all the important soul-changes through 
which our beings pass ; but it would be well indeed 
if all our opinions came to us in this unbiased way. 
" What !" you say, " am I not to mold my child ac- 
cording to my own ideas and preferences?" No; 
certainly not. You must not expect your child to 
accept your views for no better reason than because 
they are yours. If he is educated properly, the time 
v/ill come when he must accept them if they stand 
the test of truth ; if they do not, he never will. He 
may try and cheat himself into the belief that he 
does, but they will wage an eternal warfare with his 
own convictions, or else float lightly upon the sur- 
face of his mind, while he never dives deep enough 
to find a genuine idea of his own. 

"Then," you say, "our children are not to be- 
lieve and sympathize with us at all." Yes ; certainly 
they will, for like begets like, and our children 
inherit from us peculiarities of mind and character 



Poctiy and Ptosc of Marie R. Biitlei'. 2gg 



that will naturally incline them to think and feel as 
we do in many things besides matters of right and 
wrong, where, of course, we meet upon the common 
ground of truth. They will be like us in many re- 
spects, and probably they would be more like us still, 
if we were more like ourselves, our natural selves ; 
more as we would have been had not early educa- 
tion, wrongly directed, changed our character in after- 
life. But they are still enough like us to commune 
with us in all our thoughts — all pure, good thoughts 
— and learn wisdom from our experience ; and unless 
we are arbitrary bigots, the communion will not be 
the less sweet because they can not yet grasp all we 
grasp, nor because we can not force the pure water 
of their reason up the rugged hill of our eccentric- 
ities. 

You know what It is to fight against something 
you can not believe, and do n't see why you should, 
and to struggle against something you must believe, 
and do n't see why you should not. You have toiled 
over the road — do not force them to travel it. After 
all, the surest way to make them differ from you, is 
to endeavor to make them think exactly like you. 

Some souls can not bear too great a pressure, and 
your pious, patient efforts to lead your child up the 
steep, rugged way of Calvinism, out of the slough of 
total depravity in which you assure him that he 
stands, may offend his reason, and end at last in 



^00 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



making him an infidel. Other efforts, equally well 
intended, may result in a hopeless dissatisfaction, as 
though his life were set to the wrong music ; an end- 
less longing for the key-note of the true music 
which, through the weary march of life, his straining 
ear never catches, but in discordant notes that drown 
the hymn of the angels, that else would lure him up 
to heaven. 

What do our souls tell us ? Many, many things 
which we would be all the better for hearing, and 
which, if listened to, would bear us many soul- 
leagues nearer heaven. But in early infancy we begin 
with our philosophy and religion to drown the 
"still small voice" of the young soul which, if we 
allowed it speech, would speak in the language of 
God, from whom it so lately came. We take it for 
granted that Satan begins at once at one ear, to pour 
all manner of wickedness into the heart of a child ; 
and we see no other way to turn the balance but by 
pouring all manner of righteousness into the other. 
This is the theory ; as if life were a race as well as a 
battle between the powers of good and evil, and the 
child a passive prize to be contended for, If this 
were true, we see at once our immense disadvantage ; 
for, while Satan and his promptings are wholly bad 
and wrong, we ourselves are never sure that our in- 
fluence is wholly good and right. Our principles 
may be in general quite correct, but we who have 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. joi 



been in the world so long, often mar the great truths 
of God by giving them expression in the dialect of 
earth ; in other words, discolor and distort them with 
a little prejudice and sophistry. 

We may quote Scripture for every position we 
take ; but so did Satan eighteen hundred years ago, 
and it is wonderful with what success his followers 
have quoted it ever since. But this is our fault, not 
God's ; for among all its perfections, the crowning 
glory of the Bible is, that it is a perfect compilation 
of answers to every question with which the human 
mind reaches out after Deity. But from early youth 
we, or those who educate us, mix with the "good 
seed " so much error and prejudice, it is not singular 
that the wheat and tares grow up together in the 
best of hearts ; and when they ripen, they fall to- 
gether into the hearts of the next generation, to pro- 
duce in time another harvest ; and so on forever, in 
endless succession, come the seedtime and harvest of 
error. This error, too, is not that of which the 
world takes cognizance, but the more respectable and 
pretentious sins of prejudice, bigotry and pride. Yet 
God has commanded us to be perfect, and we must 
be if we expect to enter heaven. Of course we shall 
often be overtaken in some sins as long as we remain 
on earth, but it must not be deliberately and system- 
atically that we sin. The truth is not so far from us 
as we are from it. God never leaves himself without 



J02 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



a witness in the human heart, to say amen to all his 
words : and in the education of our children, let us 
be careful how we set aside or do violence to this di- 
vine witness, who is our only hope in the unequal 
contest with Satan. If a child is crippled or de- 
formed, how we grieve over the physical blight ; 
and yet how often we deform the soul, whose nature 
it is to grow erect and fair ! How many persons who 
aim to teach their children morality and religion, dis- 
tort them with selfishness, worldly wisdom and prej- 
udice, until at last, when the backbone of their moral 
sense will bear no more curvature, it breaks, and they 
go crawling through life, moral cripples. 

In vain will God spread out the illumined pages of 
liis revelation to a blind and distorted reason. 

God is a grand builder. In all his works there is 
no failure. In the dim ages before time began, there 
was no light because there was no eye to receive 
it ; but when the eyes of Creation were breaking 
from their long slumber, light was born ; and when 
reason came forth, truth was developed. 

Call it reason or conscience, it is the same ; and it 
will surely guide us on to heaven, unless we use it for 
a sail instead of a rudder ; and then, although the 
tide is setting heavenward, adverse winds may drift 
us on to the rocks of Death. But the principle al- 
ways remains the same ; and in the beautiful adapt- 
ation of our senses to the revelations of Nature, 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. joj 



and our reason to the revelations of God, lie our 
hopes of wisdom in this world, and happiness here- 
after. 

A very common-sense writer in the Atlantic 
Monthly says that whatever has, in some form, been 
beheved by men in all ages of the world, must at the 
bottom have some great truth. We might take the 
converse of this, and say that every great funda- 
mental truth must, in some way, assert itself to the 
human mind, at least in the form of a question. All 
races and ages of men have had some belief, however 
shadowy, in a divine Being who embodies all power 
and wisdom. Going back to the age of Socrates, it 
is doubtful if he owed his persecution as much to 
the disbelief of his persecutors, as to their internal 
conviction of the sublime truth for which he died. 
Men are rarely persecuted for error as they are for 
truth. 

Without believing in what is called "natural re- 
ligion," still, account for it as we may, it is impossi- 
ble not to know that, from the dawn of reason, the 
young soul is filled with eager questions, unformed 
and shadowy, but yet bearing on the great subject of 
divinity and immortality. These are questions we 
must answer ; these are the roots we must nourish. 
Not in our own way and our own time, but in God's 
way, in his very words, and at the time when the 
young soul asks them — not before, or the answers 



;^o/i. Poetiy and Ptvse of Marie R. Butler. 



will be practically useless ; and not after, or else that 
Satan whom we so much dread may step in and set- 
tle the question on a false basis. 

To have a soul saturated with theology is not to be 
eood. To have a mind crowded with facts is not to 
be wise. 

To read a child never so good a lesson upon the 
grand subjects of duty and destiny, before his men- 
tal appetite has shown that he is ready for the food, 
and able to digest it, is about as promotive of his 
mental and spiritual growth, as a double dinner to- 
day because he will be hungry to-morrow, would be 
of his physical growth. 

This is no scientific theory of education, but plain, 
true common sense — too plain to need proof, and too 
solemn to be unheeded or gainsaid. 

Children do not die of mental dyspepsia, but they 
suffer from it in various ways. We often give them 
a surfeit of the very mental food for which we are 
anxious to cultivate their taste ; and curiosity, which 
is nothing more than mental appetite, becoming 
cloyed with what is good, seeks other food less 
wholesome, perhaps wholly bad. Then, in our in- 
scrutable ignorance and far-seeing blindness, we insult 
our own souls and mock our Creator, by exhibiting 
our wayward children as living evidences of the truth 
of the doctrine of ^^ total hereditary depravity," or pay 
a compliment to Satan by telling him he has sue- 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. J05 



ceeded in liis teaching better than we who had the aid 
of God, succeeded in ours. 

Day by day, before our eyes, Nature is showing us 
how she works in harmony with God's laws, and yet 
we do not walk in her ways. The child is born. 
God has made a human body and soul, and laid it in 
the nursing arms of Nature. Forthwith she estab- 
lishes a just proportion between food and growth, and 
makes the appetite the regulator. Brain, bone and 
muscle are crying, "Build us up;" and patient Na- 
ture goes on building, with the food God prepared 
for it. There is no cramming or starving ; the appe- 
tite is a nice regulator, and asks food at just the time 
and in just the proportion that the body needs it for 
material to work up. So the house of the body goes 
on building, and all is well. But when the young 
soul looks out and asks for food, then we begin the 
cramming or starving, often both, in alternation. 
What appetite and digestion are to the body, curios- 
ity and reason are to the mind ; and as God has pre- 
pared the physical, so he has the mental food, and 
established the immutable laws by which both must 
be appropriated, if we expect it to be food indeed — 
not poison or clogging waste, but material for our 
growth. 

The little soul must sleep for awhile. Let it alone, 
and soon it will wake with the question: "Who 
made the stars and the flowers, and who made every- 



jo6 Poetry a?zd Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



body ?" Then open the text-book of our Hves, and 
read the grand but simple story beginning thus : " In 
the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth. " This is God's answer. Then close the book 
and lay it away, for this is food enough for once. 
Let him think and talk about it for a while, and then 
forget it for his play ; for the little soul must have 
sleep, food, exercise, and then sleep again, in regular 
succession. The lesson was food ; thinking and talk- 
ing about it was exercise ; and then forgetting it was 
mental sleep. To-morrow, perhaps, the little soul 
will awaken again with the question: "Where is 
God?" or, "Where did baby brother go?" Then 
open the book again, and repeat, in language he can 
understand, the description of the " New Jerusalem ;" 
then stop again for exercise and rest. But soon the 
question will come, "Can't we go there, too?" This 
will be the text for another sermon ; and so on till 
youth and manhood, when the mind can take longer 
lessons, and understand them better. Every word of 
God's revelation to man will be nourishing food to the 
full-grown soul. He will not form opinions, and go 
to the Bible afterward for proof, or elaborate theories, 
and go to God's revelation to cull corroboratory 
texts ; but the result of his education will be seen in 
a stronger power to grasp good and reject evil, and 
he will go to his Bible simply to see what it says, and 
know what it means and would have him do. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. joy 



In his theology there will be no hard knots to 
untie, and in his piety no selfishness and prejudice. 
A faith formed in this way will last through time, 
and defy all the efforts of worldliness, bigotry and 
sectarianism to move one timber of its strong founda- 
tion : and Infidelity itself will be ground to impalpable 
powder between the millstones of man's perfect 
faith and the immutable truth of Jehovah. 



jo8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



"THE REALM OF CHANGE." 

" Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of 
change." 

In the ship of Life, Conservatism may do for bal- 
last, but not for sails. 

* ' Old things shall pass away, and all things become 
new," is written upon the face of creation. 

Nothing in the universe is unchangeable but God, 
and those grand attributes and laws which are the 
steps of His throne. 

Light, which of all material things most nearly 
approaches the infinite, is the most evanescent and 
changeful. A cloud obscures it; or the night 
Cometh, and to-morrow is a new creation. 

The trees bud and blossom, and the leaves of to- 
day draw their life from the decay of half a century 
ago. The everlasting hills, with their rock-bound 
sides, are but the sepulchers of the dead things of 
centuries past, and wise men read the inscriptions 
and tell us when they died. 

All things must be drawn at last into the inexor- 
able orbit of life, death and resurrection. Nature 
learned this lesson when Time began, and in the 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jop 



beautiful order of seedtime and harvest she brings 
her annual offering, and swears allegiance to the im- 
mutable laws of change. 

We would stand still, but we can not. To-day- 
is crumbling beneath our feet, and we must step 
upon the new to-morrow, though we can not take 
our treasures with us ; and on, and on, over to-mor- 
rows without end, we must pass into the far future, 
leaving a part of ourselves behind at every step. 

Our very bodies change. Their essential particles 
are scattered to the earth and air, and from year to 
year we put new bodies on, like new garments for the 
soul. Human will, which is stronger than life or 
death, is powerless to keep intact these frames of 
ours ; and the very bodies in which we walked a 
score of years ago, are not the bodies in which 
we walk to-day. Nor do they change alone; our 
hopes, loves, rewards and ambitions make mighty 
revolutions. 

It is curious to know how the care-worn skeptic of 
fifty, who denies the possibility of identity in the 
resurrection of the body, could prove that, either 
physically or mentally, he is the veritable little boy 
who cried over a broken top forty years ago. 

But while Nature glides so smoothly through her 
vast mutations that even our bodies move in uncon- 
scious obedience through her marvellous changes; 
spirit is the only rebellious subject, where all else 



J 10 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



bows in willing submission to the inevitable law 
which nature and revelation alike proclaim the will of 
God. Yet the changes through which visible things 
pass, are few and small when compared to the many- 
rounded ladder up which our souls may climb to 
Heaven. 

Change is the very angel of God, sent down to 
earth to make his paths straight, and the ascent 
easier from human weakness and sin to immortality 
and honor. It is this when we learn its laws, and 
through their discipline reach its end. We call this 
a sad world of change ; but in this world God could 
give us no more terrible punishment than the power 
of standing still. Were this within our grasp, He 
would call us in vain. Though we looked up to the 
glory of Heaven, and stretched out yearning arms to 
its infinite rest, yet we would shrink appalled from 
the only path that leads there. We shudder when 
we think that, as we toil up the steep and broken 
way of labor and self-denial, from step to step, we 
must leave something valuable behind, and, at last, 
stripped of all, wend our way through the lone desert 
of old age, down to the shore, in some hour when 
the waves run high, to be borne out upon an ebbing 
tide — where? Oh I imagination has borne us on 
where Heaven is out of sight. Dying grace is not 
promised to the living. We are tempting God, and 
upon the cold horizon shines no promise — for Heaven 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jii 



has sunk down behind the hills of doubt ; and we 
gladly turn back to the' idols of Now, content to take 
a perpetual lease upon To-day, satisfying our rest- 
lessness by viewing the panorama of a world moving 
on while we alone stand still. We would be like a 
little boy in a boat lashed to the shore, afraid to ven- 
ture out, yet with dizzy eyes watching the tide as it 
bears its freight to breast the sea; fancying we are 
sailing too, yet ever and anon turning with a sigh of 
content to realize that our boat, with all our play- 
things on board, is tied to an everlasting Present. 
So, not in judgment, but in love, God removes his 
hand from each successive present, and lets it fall ; 
and not in repining but in love, should we move on. 
Sometimes when our faith is small, He takes our 
idols from us, and removing them to the safe shelter 
of His rest, bids us follow on. Sometimes, when we 
dally on the way, He touches us gently and a gray 
hair or a failing sense remains to tell us where His 
hand was laid when He moved us farther on. Some- 
times His hand is laid more heavily upon us, and a 
bodily infirmity, like Jacob's shrunken sinew, con- 
strains us to lean upon the staff of His promise, 
" My grace shall be sufficient for your day." No 
matter : the staff will bear us through. Though we 
stumble, we shall not fall ; though the way is rough, 
we shall not be over-weary. And every change 
leaves us further on, even as every hill we climb 



^12 Poetry aitd Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



leaves us further up and nearer the ineffable glory of 
the end. 

We must go on ; we may go up. Change is a uni- 
versal sovereign, and the resistance of soul is the 
conflict of ages. Change is a royal sovereign, too, 
and has for us many grand possibilities in her gift, 
and one of which she little recks : by obeying her 
laws we cooperate with God, who rules all change, 
and from subjects we become kings. Our realm is 
the infinite future ; thenceforth the race set before us 
is but an eager march into our kingdom. 

When the inertia of the soul is thoroughly over- 
come, there is something grand in a running race 
with Time ; not resisting the changes as they come, 
not even standing at the door like patient Nature, to 
see what to-morrow will bring forth, but strong in the 
strength of Him who ruleth Time and Change ; and 
safe in the arms of Him who overruleth all things for 
our good, and wise in the knowledge of Him to 
whom all things are revealed, we may stand on the 
outer verge of Time and step grandly into the future, 
like prophets, in the name of God. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j/j 



KEEPING TIME. 

Not long ago I attended church where I was a 
stranger. It was a neat Httle chapel, and the congre- 
gation appeared to feel quite a pride and pleasure in 
the temple they had built for the Lord. All were 
bright and cheerful, presenting quite a refreshing 
contrast to some pictures memory furnished, of long 
rows of men and women with inane faces, seeming 
to imply that they were not guests in the house of 
God, but spectators, resenting this omission on the 
part of our Divine Flost, by looking on with an air 
of well-bred indifference, as if they were not hungry 
for the bread of life. It was a rare satisfaction to 
see so many whose faces proclaimed that they were 
indeed invited by divine love, and could not forget 
that they were the guests of the Lord of Hosts. 
Their hearts were so full of prayer and praise, that, 
during the assembling hour, their zeal burst forth in 
a prelude of song. 

It was the Old Hundred, Luther's music to the 
hundredth psalm — called old when it was new ; but 
which will be new still when it has been sung by fifty 
generations. The words are remembered, but when 



J// Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



those grand notes rolled out upon the listening air, 
they seemed to breathe the spirit of that ancient 
poem to whose words of holy inspiration their music 
first was set. 

But, alas ! despite the harmony of soul and sound, 
even here was something to forgive, something to re- 
mind us of that jarring chord which was struck when 
the gates of Paradise were closed, and will vibrate 
till Time shall die. 

One voice, which might have been full and rich, 
soared perhaps on the wings of zeal far above the 
rest — so far that it always descended to the long 
notes at the end of the line just half a note too late, 
so that we seemed to have a kind of echo to Old 
Hundred, as if the singer could not trust the walls to 
do their ancient duty. 

Yet no one heeded the discordant voice. It is 
singular how, after frequent repetitions, pleasant and 
unpleasant things are apt to fall alike on inattentive 
or deaf ears. Not having heard the voice before, it 
discomforted me, and in the interval before service, 
I began to speculate upon the character of one who, 
with such serene unconsciousness of results, could 
continue to 

" Crack the ears of harmony 
And break the legs of time." 

I at once decided that the singer must be one of 
those tranquil spirits who never feel the power of 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. J75 



great temptation, but move on through life in the 
straight path, because it is the nearest way to heaven ; 
often sinning in Httle things against the order of God's 
universe, but never hearing the discord or feehng the 
jar. Such characters rarely become very wicked ; for 
it is one of God's merciful laws of compensation, that 
those whose avenues of moral sense are dull, can 
never feel the keenest power of strong temptation. 
So, at last, the Great Judge may find in them no 
more to forgive than in those whose quick ears catch 
the harmony of Heaven, even while singing the 
psalms of the Earth. Those discerning souls who 
see all the wrong-doing in the world, often find "their 
mantle of charity not broad enough to cover it ; and 
with a blindness strangely at variance with their other- 
wise sharp-sightedness, they fore-seal their own con- 
demnation by piling up mountains of transgression 
for the wrath of God to kindle : nor do they spare 
themselves ; their praises for redemption are drowned 
by the ceaseless wail of their confession of sin. 

Compared with the harmony of Heaven, our songs 
of life are all out of tune. We are laggards in the 
heavenly measure, and the Great Time-keeper notes 
the discord. 

The man of the world feels this when he returns 
home after a long day ; his heart holds a vague con- 
sciousness of something wrong; and when he has 
given six busy days to the world, and the first day 



ji6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



of the week comes, bringing the hours which he has 
always devoted to the accumulation of treasures in 
Heaven, then he finds what the wrong is — his thoughts 
make a discord in the holy place. He has not been 
keeping time. Perhaps he has even lost the key- 
note of the holy song, and then he wonders how all 
the discord of the earth could ever make him forget 
that. But all is right now, and he goes his way re- 
joicing, keeping time in his daily life as a visible sign 
that he is making melody in his heart to God. He 
speaks gently, tenderly to his wife, and restores the 
harmony of her spirit, if, in the confusion of earthly 
things she too had lost the key-note, and was not 
keeping time to the song of Divine compassion and 
human charity. He does not reprove her, remember- 
ing that Jiis soul was full of discord ; and perhaps it 
is because she kept time with his mood yesterday, 
that she is out of tune to-day. So he speaks gently, 
tenderly now. The children hear it, and petulant 
-words die unspoken, and selfish thoughts are still- 
born. Without understanding the measure, they 
have joined in the song which the redeemed of God 
are singing wherever infinite mercy and human love 
have gained a victory over sin. 

We know that we are not our own ; we are God's 
instruments, and our lives are set to the music of His 
glory. How can we make such discord when we 
know the sound goes up to Heaven ? How dare we 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jij 



stretch forth careless or impious hands to smite the 
chords of other hearts, when He who tuned them to 
his praise is standing by to hsten ? 

We are not all strong, and some weak notes that 
linger long behind, make no discord on the ear of 
God. They shall " learn the new song. " They were 
weak, but did not falter in the long strife, whose end 
is victory over Sin and Death. 

Some loud songs are never heard in Heaven, but 
float out and are lost in the infinite silence. 

The psalm of life is not an idle song. It is the 
grand march over the plains of Armageddon, where 
we are fighting for the victory over the world, the 
flesh — yes, and the spirit too — the spirit of selfish- 
ness and all evil. 

The great pulse of the universe is keeping time to 
that song ; and the great heart of God is grieved when 
we make a discord even in the heart of a little child. 



ji8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



THE BROKEN EVERGREEN. 

In one of the Eastern States there is a beautiful 
home, where the sunshine always seems brighter, and 
the flowers fairer, than in any other spot in the 
world. It was here that my sister and I were born, and 
lived with our parents, a happy family of four, until 
three went to heaven, and one went out into the wide 
world to wait until God should send for her. 

I have another home now, and little children that 
call me "Mother;" but when they ask for stories, I 
like best to tell them something of my childhood in 
the old home, just as it was before my parents and 
sister went from there to heaven. 

I had told them all about our flower-garden, our 
pet lambs, and the curious cave we used to visit ; all 
but one thing, that I never related until to-night. 
Though often in my thoughts, it always made me 
sad, and I could not give it words. 

Beside our mother's garden, sister and I had one 
of our own, with trees and shrubs and flowers, quite 
perfect in itself. This was the best of all our 
treasures. Our parents managed the more diffi- 
cult matters of planting and transplanting, but we 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jig 



watched and tended it, and were never weary of ar- 
ranging it to suit our changing taste. 

One fine spring morning, my birthday, father 
and mother came out with us to work among our 
flowers. Well I remember how happy we were, 
planning two little mounds at one end of our garden 
walk ; how busily we worked cutting the green sod 
for the borders ; and how delighted we were when 
the myrtle and Wandering Jew were planted on the 
top of both, and mother said that in the summer they 
would grow very fast, and their long sprays trail over 
the sides of the mounds like a green fringe. Before 
sunset our work was finished. We spent the evening 
in mother's room, sitting at the window from which 
we could see our mounds with their bright green bor- 
ders ; and, though we were reading, we looked out 
every few moments until it was quite dark. 

After a while sister asked father why that plant was 
called by so odd a name — " Wandermg few.'^ He 
replied that it was probably on account of its strange 
growth, branching out in every direction, and form- 
ing new roots from its branches, yet nowhere a deep 
root, as though it was always in readiness to move. 
Then father told me the strange old story of the 
"Wandering Jew," who, in punishment for a terri- 
ble sin, could never die, but must wander the earth 
through all the centuries, till our Saviour comes 
ao-ain. 



J 20 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



The next day was sister's birthday, and we rose 
early and hastened out to view our garden treasures, 
and see if their dew-washed eyes were opened. But 
the sun had been there before us, and every leaf and 
blade of grass was the brighter for his coming. The 
myrtle looked quite contented and happy in its new 
place, and even the Wandering Jew seemed as much 
at home as could be expected of such an unhappy 
vagrant, although we imagined that it had already 
decided in which direction to send out its first wan- 
dering roots and leaves. 

Although we talked an hour about it, in one mo- 
ment we saw all this and something else; too, which 
surprised and delighted us. On each mound, in the 
center, was a beautiful little evergreen tree. We 
guessed at once that these were planted in honor of 
sister's birthday. While we were admiring them, 
our parents came out and told us that the trees were 
called " Norway Spruce." Then father showed us a 
little pale green bud that pointed directly upward 
from the top of the center branch or stem, and bade 
us be very careful not to injure that, or the trees 
would lose their beautiful proportions, and the 
branches grow out in disorder ; and he wished them 
to grow perfect, and be always pleasant reminders of 
sister's birthday and mine, for she was eight years old 
to-day and I was ten yesterday. We promised to be 
very careful, and then mother said, with the old 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Britler. J2i 



beautiful smile, " My children, keep your hearts like 
the evergreen : in the spring, summer and winter of 
life always the same — changeless amid all the changes 
of earth ; and let your thoughts be like the evergreen 
branches — ever arranged in beautiful order around 
one center, and that center pointing straight to 
heaven." 

I can never forget how mother looked as she said 
this, and how very beautiful the garden was. I 
thought then that Eden must have looked like it, and 
I wondered how Satan dared to walk through it; but 
he did, and it is not strange that he came and walked 
through ours. 

It happened soon after that father and mother took 
a long ride to the next town. Sister went with them. 
I was to remain at home. I pleaded to go, but in 
vain ; and then, after they left, filled with anger and 
disappointment, I ran out into the garden, heedless 
of my steps. Stumbling against one of the mounds, 
the evergreen scratched my face. In my blind rage 
I struck the tree with all my might, and, looking up, 
saw I had broken a large piece of the top branch of 
sister's tree, and in breaking it had peeled a long 
piece of bark from the stem. I sat down, saying, 
"I am glad of it;" but I did not feel glad, for the 
sweet, bright flowers were looking up at me, and the 
sun was smiling down, and I could not help feeling 
that I was the evil spirit working in our Eden. The 



]22 Poetjy and Prose of Ilai^ie R. Butler. 



flowers were blooming, and the leaves were green, 
and all seemed to be smiling back their thanks to the 
great Creator who had made them beautiful and 
called them good ; yet I, who had received most of 
all, was wicked and unthankful. I felt very miserable 
until my parents returned in the evening ; then I told 
them of my anger and its sad results. They were 
grieved at my willfulness and sin, but told me of One 
who was far more grieved than they, and whose par- 
don I must ask. Then they left me with a good- 
night kiss, knowing my heart was punishing me ; and 
it was so : we may escape every other punishment, 
yet that will always follow us. 

In the morning I took sister to our garden and 
showed her what I had done : her tears fell upon the 
mound, though she kissed me in token of forgive- 
ness. But her grief was not so deep as mine. She 
wept for a broken evergreen. I wept because I had 
been selfish and wicked. I knew my sister had for- 
given me, and I prayed that God would — and I think 
he did ; but from that time I never played or worked 
in sight of the evergreen without a feeling of sadness, 
for it was sister's birthday tree, and I had broken 
it ; and then I always thought of Eden and the 
evil spirit that walked through amid the bloom and 
flowers. 

Time passed on, and summer made our garden 
greener and brighter. Sitting one day on the grass. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j2j 



I told sister my old fancy about the garden of Eden 
when I felt like the evil spirit ; and pointing to the 
tree which had grown very crooked and straggling, I 
said, "■ See, I left my mark in Eden, not on the peo- 
ple, but the trees." But she only smiled, and said, 
"Try to forget it, dear;" then kissed me as she laid 
her flowers in my lap, and walked slowly up the 
gravel walk to the house. 

She looked like an angel to me then, and my heart 
took a picture of her that it can never, never lose. 
In a moment I remembered that she looked flushed 
all day, and, running to the house, I found her laying 
her head in mother's lap. That night she was ill, 
and for three days she grew worse. Sometimes I 
was told to be very quiet, and then I feared she 
would die. 

At last they told me she was dead. With flowers 
on her breast, and some of our myrtle in her beauti- 
ful hair, they laid her away to sleep. 

Our home was very lonely after this ; it seemed 
as if our angel had left us, and taken the sunshine 
away. 

One day I stole out Into the garden to weep, but, 
alas ! the first object that met my sight was the bro- 
ken evergreen, sister's birthday gift. My wicked 
anger against her was all remembered; the mutilated 
tree seemed still to reproach me with my sin. 

I sat down and tried to recall her face as she said. 



^2^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



"Try to forget it, dear ;" and I felt as if she was say- 
ing it to me then, and my heart grew brighter, and 
my tears were dried; but the tree never grew 
straight. 

Years after, my parents went to heaven, and left 
me alone with the sunshine and the flowers ; and now 
strangers live in the old home, and I am far awa}^. 
But I often think of it, and sometimes visit it, and 
the rooms look familiar, and the trees like old 
friends. Even the flowers smile, as if in welcome to 
an old companion. The myrtle now covers the 
mounds, for the Wandering Jew disappeared long 
ago. It must have been killed by some winter's 
frost ; but my little daughter thinks it has only wan- 
dered away after the fashion of its old namesake. 

Among all the flowers and trees there are none 
but pleasant memories for me, until I see the two 
evergreens. Year by year one has grown taller and 
more beautiful, but the other irregular and straggling 
still. The broken tree ever reminds me of my sweet 
sister and my foolish anger, and leaves a regret that 
can never be wiped out ; but then, looking up with 
the tall, changeless evergreen that no willful hand has 
marred, I think of my mother's words on sister's 
birthday morning: for the center branch, with its 
spiral cone, still is pointing " stjmght to heaven,'^ and 
I know that they are all there in that beautiful 
country, where nought is ever broken or blighted, 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. ^^5 



and the good never die, and no sin or sorrow- 
works through among the bright trees and flowers, 
to mar their beauty, forever. 



J26 Poetry and Prose of Mai'ie R. Butler. 



RAYS FROM AN OLD MEMORY. 

" We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we 
love the brethren." 

It was a cold night, twenty years ago ; there was 
a cold new moon shining, and great heaps of snow 
lay on each side of the beaten foot-track that led over 
the plank walk, like a straight and narrow path to the 
old Methodist chapel. 

More snow was falling ; but this was prayer-meet- 
ing night, and in every direction were fresh foot- 
prints in the snow, all tending to the little church ; for 
cold, like tempation, is easily resisted, when it only 
assails us from without; and so in the old chapel 
were gathered a pleasant number of those whom 
memory labels the salt of the earth. The lesson, the 
prayers that were offered, the songs that were sung, 
have been borne away from memory and sound, ex- 
cept it be in the heart and ear of Him who never for- 
gets. But one figure rises distinct through all the 
mists of twenty years. It was a strong, calm, re- 
poseful figure, as if it had grown firm by battling 
with the world and all the evil therein. The face 
had a lifted expression, as if all the soul's anchors 



Poetjy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j2y 



were dropped in Heaven, and his iron-gray hair 
seemed a perpetual suggestion, that in his calm reli- 
ance on some hidden power he had disputed, inch by 
inch, the aggressions of time. 

' ' Where two or three are gathered together in my 
name, I am in their midst to bless them." Are these 
idle words ? Are they simply an expression of God's 
lofty approval, looking down through the vista of 
untraversable space? or is this promised presence an 
actual, spiritual halo, like a fragment of Pentecost 
among us? Wiser heads than mine among God's 
warring children, have made of this a rallying point 
of difference ; and here, in the name of God, have 
been dealt some of the heaviest blows of religious 
politics. But twenty years ago these blows fell far 
over the head of the child at the Methodist prayer- 
meeting ; and when, just at the conclusion of the 
services, the iron-grayhaired man arose and re- 
peated, ' ' We know that we have passed from death 
unto life, because we love the brethren," it seemed 
as if the words must have come of the inspiration 
of the hour, if they had not been uttered centuries 
before. 

To the child, whose eyes and ears were unedu- 
cated by the world, and open to impressions, there 
was something in the spiritual atmosphere of that 
room that suggested the gates of pearl, the streets of 
gold, and the feet that walk thereon. If indeed the 



J28 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Spirit of God had descended like a dove upon the 
open Bible, it would have seemed to the believing 
heart and intensified imagination of the child a fitting 
time and place. 

The services were over, but the charm was not 
broken. In the lingering of feet and the clasp of 
many hands, the child saw the seal of love which the 
world knows not of, and in her heart of hearts 
thanked God for the visible sign which might be 
hers, when in His mercy He should call her into the 
circle of His love. 

Ah ! well indeed, if the interpretation of God's 
message to man were as clear and distinct as his seal 
upon his children. The child saw the seal and heard 
the message ; but in the windings of a religious the- 
ory the message was lost, and, for long years, only 
the seal remained in her memory, a perpetual wit- 
ness of what might have been, if the children of God 
would only be content to have the doors of Heaven 
as wide open as the Christ did when he entered in. 

"Except ye become as little children" — ah! if we 
all became as little children, should we be able, or 
care to elaborate or accept long codicils to the "will 
and testament" of Christ, and call them creeds? 

And we of the "Reformation" — we, who have 
stripped Christianity of its gorgeous trappings ; we, 
who have divested it of the darkened counsel of 
many words, until it shines undimmed, like the "Star 



Poetry ajid Prose of Marie R. Butler. J2g 



in the East," directly over the place where Christ 
awaits our coming to fall down and worship Him — 
are we sealed with His seal, as we bear His charter 
to a dying world ? 

"Ye are the salt of the earth." " Ye are the light 
of the world. " Can the salt of the earth and the light 
of the world blush for the logic of facts, when the 
world quotes to them : ' ' We know that we have 
passed from death unto life because we love the 
brethren " ? 

**Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to 
every creature, teaching them to do whatsoever I have 
commanded you." Dare man repeat the holy com- 
mission and leave out its most reiterated injunction — 
"Love one another" — and dare he preach what he 
does not practice? He has indeed an altar whereon 
to make sacrifices for all the shortcomings which, 
hke dropped stitches, mar his daily life. But the 
brazen altar is outside of the holy place, and he has 
no altar of indulgence whereon to sacrifice for delib- 
erate sinning, that he may cultivate the roots of an 
old bitterness whose pungent fruit may please him. 

In the olden time it. was only consecrated hands 
that might bear the Ark of God's covenant; this was 
but a symbol of the purity of his soul who would be a 
representative of Christ. It is true, that no mortal 
man is pure enough to honor this profession ; and in 
proportion as a man is lifted by office or capacity 



jjo Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



above the level of his fellows, he is lifted into the 
sifting gaze of the world. And yet, the world has 
a right to expect much of those who have professed 
to turn their backs on the world, the flesh and the 
evil one ; to have put on Christ, and with his sacred 
charter in their hands, to work for Him till He calls 
them home. 

The world has a right to expect, at least, perfect 
love and harmony between those who stand before 
them as the ministers of the Prince of Peace, and 
the heralds of the Cross. 

Religion has no argument unless we can tell good 
men it will make them better. The observance of, 
civil and social law would be a gospel of improvement 
to bad men : can Christianity promise nothing more 
in this world? This would be to proclaim it a vast 
pretension, and us a vast body of pretenders. And 
if the Christ which is in us is not patient enough to 
do His will through our members, dare we tell men 
that we rely upon this power to move our bodies 
when they are senseless dust, and raise them in the 
first resurrection for our reward? Who is able for 
these things ? Who dare decide how much of this 
practical infidelity God will pardon ? Any divergence 
the world more willingly overlooks than an unloving 
spirit among Christians. A contentious Christian is 
a recruiting officer for the grand army of infidels, in 
every true practical sense; in all except the senti- 



Poetry a7td Prose of Marie R. Bzitler. jji 



ment (for religion has its sentiment), he crucifies the 
Lord again, and puts Him to an open shame. 

When we consider the Church of Christ as a com- 
monwealth, a community of interests, a partnership 
of capital, an insurance of happiness here and here- 
after, with privileges as broad as the powers of man, 
with promises as high as Heaven and deep as the 
grave, and added to this the aesthetic beauty, the 
sentiment of religion, which is the concentrated es- 
sence of all poetry, we stand appalled by the magni- 
tude of our pretensions compared with the meagre- 
ness of our realization. 

Nothing but the densest of all ignorance, or Sa- 
tan's chains welded never to be broken, could im- 
pede the progress of an intelligent and consistent Chris- 
tianity. Religious controversy would be narrowed 
to one issue, that between those who are, and are 
not, stockholders in the commonwealth of Zion, 
whose dividends are sure for all time and all eternity. 

In a country like this, where there are no Goliaths 
of Church and State to be slain, Christianity should 
sweep with the double inomentuni of divine and hu- 
man love ; the brotherhood of Christ should spread 
from the Eastern borders of civilization, to where the 
Chinese are coming to us through our Western gates, 
and the world see a second Pentecost. 

This is not a vision of Utopia, nor a result incom- 
patible with the imperfections of men. When the 



JJ2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



eyes of men are pure enough to see the Christ in 
their fellow-men, the divinity in their own hearts will 
expand and the small errors of to-day will sink down 
into utterless depths of nothingness before the great 
interests of the Christian commonwealth. 

We shall not then hear Christians and teachers of 
men talk over in private the petty gossip of an old 
bitterness, or rush into print to expose or correct the 
fancied errors of their fellow-laborers in the vineyards 
of God. It is written, ' ' Prove all things and hold 
fast to that v/hich is good ; " but men are not things, 
and it is not written, "Judge all men, and make of 
your desks and pens thrones and scepters, judging 
the tribes of Israel." O heralds of the cross of 
Christ's humiliation — proclaimers of the gospel of 
peace, if you could rush to the pulpit, the rostrum 
and the press, and before the eyes of men tear from 
your brethren the rays and tinsel of error and pre- 
tension, it would not draw them heavenward. If the 
pearly gates were opened as wide as the mouth of 
hell, men could not be pushed into heaven. 

Could we strip a man of all his human errors, till 
only his poor humanity remained, we should only 
fill him with resentment, or perhaps humiliation, so 
that, like Adam and Eve, he would know that he 
was naked, and hide himself from God. 

The time and talent wasted among religious teach- 
ers in useless controversy, in attack and defense. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jjj 



would reduce the ranks of infidels, and go far toward 
elevating Christianity from the dead level of a reli- 
gious theory, to the higher inclined plane of the will 
and love of God, whose summit is the Mount of 
Transfiguration, where the full-grown Christ within 
us puts off its earthly robe to enter into glory. 



?^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



UNDER THE DOME. 

Years ago, a party went for an afternoon's excur- 
sion from Albany to Greenbush, to visit the round- 
house. Perhaps there is nothing pecuHar about the 
place, but just as it loomed up in my childish fancy 
then, it stands in my memory to-night — vague, 
strange, awful, suggesting the idea of human action 
petrified, by time and God's inevitable justice, into 
inexorable decrees of fate. 

It was, however, only a large building with sev- 
eral dozen great arched doorways, through which 
ran railroad tracks, all crossing at the center. The 
building was very lofty, the roof rising in the cen- 
ter into an immense dome. And in this dome 
centered all the wonders of the round house. Just 
beneath it, where the tracks crossed, was a turn- 
table, and one standing on this could utter quite a 
long sentence, and hea,r his own words repeated 
after him in a voice which seemed to be hundreds of 
feet above him, but so loud and distinct that it 
marked every pause and intonation with the accu- 
racy of a deliberate speaker, and the sonorous tones 
of a church-bell. To the gay party that afternoon 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jj5 



it scarce seemed an echo, but more like invoking' 
the ghosts of dead voices that had made their 
graves in the air ; and as one after anotlier stepped 
upon the magic square to test it, the merry laugh 
was hushed, and gradually all the life of the party 
seemed to be absorbed by some weird spirit in the 
dome above. They stood for some moments in 
silence, watching through the great arched doorway 
the last beams of the sunset break into fragments 
and disappear, then slowly moved away, and I 
stepped alone on the turn-table and looked upward 
with some vague, childish idea of catching a glimpse 
of the echo ; but seeing nothing but the great, shad- 
owy dome, growing darker each moment in the 
waning light, I translated all my courage into words 
to say : ' ' Good-night, old dome ! I shall remember 
your everlasting echo" — " remember your everlast- 
ing echo," pealed out the iron tongue of the ghostly 
wonder, and I turned and fled as if pursued by the 
demon of the dome, and somewhere in my latent 
memory that echo has hidden ever since ; and 
when, as to-night, sitting by my fireside in the 
waning year, my thoughts go out into all the odd 
corners of consciousness 'and recollection to find 
food for reverie, I conceive all the world to be a 
great round-house, with a dome above and an echo 
in the future. Standing on the turn-table of the 
shifting present, I catch the echo of things to come. 



jj6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



I am startled by no ghostly repetitions now, but lis- 
tening under the dome where human volition invokes 
infinite echoes, the words and actions of the world 
come back to me in the shape of consequences and 
results. I hear the great bell of human events ring- 
ing in the cathedral of time, and thinking of all the 
human hands that somewhere are pulling the wires, 
and ropes that swing its iron tongue, I wonder how 
many would tremble and fall nerveless, if from the 
dome above a terrible voice should cry — "remember 
your everlasting echoes." 

When the Atlantic cable was laid. Dr. O. W. 
Holmes said: "The clock of time struck;" and 
when the last rail of the transcontinental railway was 
riveted down with a golden nail, some one said it 
struck again. Useless information ; dullest ears 
could hear that, and all along this overland acoustic 
tube men stood leaning on their spades and pick-axes 
to listen when that hour was struck. 

But what are the echoes under the dome of the 
impending future ? Here comes down to us a perfect 
babel of replies. Bending my ear to the loudest, it 
says: "An immense increase of the facilities of 
trade — the improvement of our western wilderness — 
increasing means of paying our national debt, and, 
after a while, the removal of our republican taber- 
nacle and our congressional tent a day's march nearer 
the Pacific Ocean." Then, in the din of echoes, I 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jjy 



hear something about the annexation of Cuba, and 
Canada falHng at last into our yearning arms ; but to 
me the connection is no longer clear ; and the classi- 
cal story of the " House that Jack Built " can never 
be improved by a political paraphrase. So I simply 
attach the wires of communication, and pass this 
echo on to Washington. To-night I would rather 
hear the moral echoes struck out by years of toil 
from these tons of railroad iron. Slowly they come, 
and dropping quietly into my ear, they say — '' First, 
you will realize this line to be a great spinal cord of 
human sympathy, social and political, running 
through these iron vertebrae of the western world, 
gathering up impressions from all the nerves of 
the body politic, for the benefit and preserva- 
tion of the whole. After a while we shall come 
to you in the shape of car-loads of Chinese, with 
their, pig-tails and their idolatry, the first to orna- 
ment your work-shops and your kitchens, and the 
latter to be wholly swept away by the irresistible 
force of your Christian civilization. You need not 
instruct them. To allow them to stand behind your 
chair will be sufficient. Did you not in this way suc- 
ceed in educating and Christianizing the heathen 
from Africa, receiving in return the small compensa- 
tion of a few generations of labor ? True, you will 
find the Chinaman very faithful to the god he wor- 
ships ; but if you are, as usual, a little lax in your 



jj8 Poetry aitd Prose of Marie P.. Butler. 



Christianity, it will encourage him to see that your 
God requires so little service. And as he inclines to 
a plurality of gods, he will be all the more easily con- 
verted should you show him that you worship mam- 
mon, too. No matter what a few ultra Christians 
may say ; you will perhaps ask them how much of 
trade and politics, how much stock in the Pacific 
Railway they control ; and if they reply, * My king- 
dom is not of this world,' then of course you will 
tell them that they can not reasonably expect a vote 
or moral influence therein ; the stained windows of 
their churches should shut out the glare of the world, 
and confine their hopes and fears. Then you will go 
on Christianizing these Chinese heathens in your 
own way, and they will learn to vote for popular 
measures and men, to spend the leisure hours of the 
Lord's-day in reading the last political sensation or 
learning the price of gold or cotton ; and if any one 
objects, you will tell them that some of the most 
liberal and influential members of churches are satis- 
fied with this kind of Christianity, and when Chris- 
tians step outside of their church-doors they should 
of course adopt the current views and tastes of the 
age, and that you should consider it great presump- 
tion for the poor Chinese to desire anything better." 
But the echo grew tiresome, and then the turn- 
table swung round, and the gold of New York is 
under the dome. Sweeping by like a ghost, the 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jjq 



echo only wails : * ' Insanity, ruin, disgrace, suicide, 
wealth, pride, lost opportunity or millstone, and a 
curse, dishonesty and greed, like a great cancer, 
eating the muscles of industry and the nerves of 
trade." And the turn-table swings round again. 
I see the funeral of George Peabody : first a long 
train of poor who weep, and of rich who praise 
and follow this example of loving charity to the 
grave. And then the train sweeps by, and I see 
little school-houses dotting the green valleys of the 
South, and in the sweet hour of children's voices, the 
echo grows confused, and as it dies away in the dis- 
tant future, the last words I catch are — "the gold of 
George Peabody — it is more blessed to give than to 
receive." And the turn-table swings round again, 
and under the dome I see other school-rooms full of 
happy children, and hear a voice read from the sacred 
Book: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
wisdom," and then the book is closed and fastened 
with a Roman chain like the Bible of Martin Luther, 
and darkness falls over the scene with the mantle 
of Roman power, until it is lit again by the lurid 
flames of final disaster — Mexico is brought to our 
doors — the great republic is rocking to its center ; its 
forum is rent in twain, and into the gulf men are 
throwing their chained Bibles and their faith, and 
yet it will not close, and this great government, 
which has gathered so many alien children under 



j/0 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



the shadow of its " hving vine" and fig-tree, is 
falHng apart by its own weight, and there is no bond 
to hold it together. 

In vain Rome stretches out her palsied hand to 
gather it to her bosom. The new generation has for- 
gotten alike the law that went forth from Jerusalem, 
and the edicts that came from Rome. In Washing- 
ton they are worshiping power ; in Boston, reason ; 
and in New York, a golden calf. The dust of the 
old world is shaken off upon the new — the republic 
is crumbling ; the disintegration beginning at her own 
heart, she is broken beneath the weight of civiliza- 
tion that was greater than it was good. Above 
this chaos a voice cried: "The heathens of old 
recognized a grand truth which at your peril you 
lost sight of — the children belong to the State ; 
as you educate, they will legislate. You have put 
words of justice into hands unskilled to use them. 
Once, in Florence, I gave you a picture of what 
this country might be, when you had no longer a 
common ground of mutual appeal against the in- 
justice and oppression of ambitious men. Your 
religions are diverse, your politics lie on one side 
of a great gulf — no tie remains. You have de- 
stroyed the old landmarks, and virtue has be- 
come policy, and goodness success. The State 
failed to teach her children the duty and wisdom 
it exacts from their maturity, and in them shall 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j^i 



its punishment be found. You are numbered with 
the nations that ' forget God. ' As France closed 
the eighteenth century in desolation, the nineteenth 
shall close with you." Louder and louder swelled 
the echo, until I stopped my ears and cried in ter- 
ror, ' ' Where are the echoes of the Church ? There 
are faithful ones in Sodom." For a moment there 
was silence, while the turn-table swung round 
again, and then a veritable valley of Shinar was 
reproduced to my wearied ears ; listen as I would, I 
could only now and then distinguish — "ritualism," 
"Calvinism," "orthodox,' "evangelical churches". 
— and then I saw a great church, and the preacher 
rose and told them of the children's chained Bibles. 
And while I heard the soft rustle of heavy silks, and 
saw the sparkle of jewels, they rose and solemnly re- 
plied: "Our kingdom is not of this world." Then 
the preacher told them that gold had reached one 
hundred and fifty-one, and a murmur ran through the 
congregation ; and as they started to their feet, it 
rose to a clamor that reached the dome, and its res- 
onant echo pealed out: "Not all that say unto me, 
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
Louder and louder pealed the echo, until, appalled, I 
started up to find that I had been dreaming till the 
fire had burned low, and the resonant echo was the 
clock striking twelve on this Saturday night. And 
so, in spite of our weakness and sin, again the angels 



j^2 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



are letting down the golden bars between six days of 
dust and toil, and the green pastures where our Shep- 
herd waits. And the Church is safe in the bosom of 
Him who will also bear our republic safe to the 
' ' Saturday evening of time, ' ' where the golden gates 
of the millennium shall unclose the Sabbath of the 
second coming. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j^j 



A PAGE OF HISTORY AND A LINE OF 
REVELATION. 

The writer of Ecce Homo, whatever may be said 
of the book, has certainly impressed upon the reader, 
with unwonted power, one thought — that the knowl- 
edge of God and the spread of Christ's kingdom is in 
itself, as a vast whole, a far greater marvel than the 
physical miracles wrought by his personal power or 
in the apostolic age. 

With the combined assistance of reason and reve- 
lation, it is difficult even yet to understand that from 
the highest round of human intelligence we can catch 
no glimpse of God, yet from the lowest round may 
touch the hem of the garment of Him who goes 
before us into heaven. 

Craving pardon for the sake of the motive, let us 
lay all reverence aside, put the miracles out of sight, 
and make a legend of the resurrection and a fable of 
the flaming Pentecost. The infidel is now satisfied ; 
and we can view what remains together. We see a 
harmless wanderer, an ambitious man, always talking 
of himself, and yet with strange impolicy always 
offending his most influential friends, and at last 



j/^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



dying a violent and shameful death, followed by only 
a few half-faithful Galilaean fishermen. And yet, 
eighteen hundred years after, this man, who has been 
dead for so many centuries, is an acknowledged 
power in every enlightened nation on the face of the 
whole earth. And this power unsupported, except 
by the memory of its dead author, and without the 
conscious volition of the mass of men, lives in our 
language, animates our literature, moves in our sen- 
ates, controls in our laws, and molds our peoples ; 
and, whether we will or not, it is the great engine of 
progress, bearing the long train of civilization over 
the track of human destiny. 

It is all this, and no man carl tell why. We strip 
Christ of his divinity, and deny every miracle, and 
yet, denuded of all this, he himself stands a greater 
miracle than all we have swept away. 

Men may reject him. They do. But no enthu- 
siasm haloes them, no power opposes ; for Christian- 
ity is aggressive, not defensive, and right and left the 
stream divides and leaves them standing like pillars 
of salt all along the way between the Sodom of the 
world's wickedness and the purest civilization con- 
templated by the closest followers of Christ. 

The religion of Christ is simpler than all philoso- 
phy, and yet a problem so deep that, in this broad 
noonday of the world, human reason can not solve it, 
yet rarely dares reject it, for fear of that sword of 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j^j 



vengeance which, but vaguely visible to the conscious 
eyes of men, always hangs suspended by God's prov- 
idence, ready to fall on an apostate people or an apos- 
tate Church. 

To those who read the pages of the world's history 
side by side with the revelations of God, the whole 
story of mankind from Eden to Mount Sinai, from 
Canaan to the Cross, all down the torpid centuries 
until now, are but a sermon on the text, ' ' The world 
by wisdom knew not God." Egypt, Greece, and 
Rome, and China with her thirty centuries of civ- 
ilization, borne not as a light ahead, but as a burden 
in the rear of the march of nations, all proclaim 
it true. 

But lest the bewildered eyes of men should fail to 
read aright so vast a page, it would seem as if Divine 
Providence had massed the elements of human wis- 
dom and folly to epitomize this truth in the tragic 
burlesque of a day. The stage was France. Long 
years of political and religious corruption had pre- 
pared an applauding audience, and in 1793 and 1794 
was enacted the most grotesque tragedy that the 
world ever saw. 

If we desire to measure the heights and depths 
of human depravity, we may sink our plummet 
here, where wickedness became frenzy and infidelity 
became enthusiasm, and where even the master- 
minds of the French Revolution, from the heights of 



j^<5 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



reason, education and refinement, alternately ignore, 
insult and patronize their Maker. 

It was just after the execution of Louis XVI. and 
Marie Antoinette, when, as William Howitt says, 
" France was one great mad -house of bloody, raving- 
maniacs." The throne was gone. The Church, 
which had sailed from Jerusalem with its snow-white 
banner, to be the ark of the world in every deluge of 
distress, had mutinied long ago, and now, sailing 
under the flag of Rome, foundered on the rocks of 
the French Revolution. The gates of hell prevailed 
against it. 

Without uncovering the past to discover just v/hen 
Christ withdrew himself from a Church profaned, we 
may simply lift the curtain of the holy place and find 
that he is gone. We see the purple and fine linen, 
the gold and frankincense, and the lights upon the 
high altar ; but the key-stone is gone from the arch 
above, and while we gaze the whole vast edifice of 
grandeur and sin falls in upon itself and disappears in 
the vortex of a sinking throne. 

Wherever we must now look for the true Church 
among those followers who so divide the living body 
of Christ, certainly it is not here ; for their light has 
gone out, St. Bartholomew's eve is avenged, and 
Christ is vindicated — the gates of hell prevail. 

They did not abolish the Church because ' ' it was 
weighed in the balance and found wanting;" they 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j^y 



did not virtually abolish it at all. It simply died, and 
they swept it out of the way to make room for a bet- 
ter thing. There was no opposition, or, at least, 
none worthy of the name, except Gregoire, Bishop 
of Blols, But dead bodies do not resist ; they re- 
garded the Church as an old idol fallen prostrate at 
the feet of Truth. 

And now we have before us the strange spectacle 
of France, an enlightened nation, without a govern- 
ment, a religion, or a church, but with the legislative 
power vested in the hands of the wisest men of 
France ; men, too, who were pouring out in impas- 
sioned sentiment their love of liberty, justice and 
virtue. The world looked on. What would these 
wise men do ? There was no law to compel, no re- 
ligion to restrain, no Church to hinder. Above the 
waste of what had been and was not, they had abso- 
lute power to will and to do. They might decree, 
and no man reverse ; they might build, and no man 
pull down. 

They held in their hands the experience of the 
past, the wisdom of the present, and the revelation 
of the future ; nor were they blind to the hour. Be- 
holding the grand possibilities before them, they be- 
lieved themselves standing on a modern Sinai to give 
laws to a waiting people. But they invoked not 
God, but Reason, and a cloud passed before their 
eyes hiding the Lord from their sight. Rousseau, 



j^(? Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



Voltaire, Talleyrand and Mirabeau had prepared 
France for Anacharsis Clootz, who, at the head of a 
party, now appeared before the Convention, pro- 
claiming the necessity of "destroying all the pre- 
tended sovereigns of earth and heaven." "There 
is," said he, "no other God but Nature, no other 
sovereign but the human race ; and Nature kneels 
not to herself." And yet in the next act we see that 
Nature did kneel to herself, when the busts of Mira- 
beau, Marat, and other apostles of the republic, were 
put in the place of the images of saints, to be wor- 
shiped in the churches. Clootz claimed that by 
dethroning God, as they had already dethroned their 
king, they would abolish together all necessity for 
taxes, public officers, or executioners, while Reason 
would unite them in a common brotherhood. The 
Convention received this impious proposition with 
transport. Gobel, Archbishop of Paris, after some 
hesitation, not of conscience but of caution, was 
decided by the more courageous conduct of Parens, 
a country cure, and appeared at last in his ponti- 
ficals, followed by many of his clergy, and ex- 
changed his miter for a red night-cap. Talleyrand, 
Bishop of Autun, with a host of others, followed, 
and then the Commune joined the popular tide 
and renounced Christianity for the worship of 
Reason. On the loth of November, amid a wild 
orgy of sentimental frenzy, the Convention and 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j^g 



the assembled multitude formally deposed the Al- 
mighty, and set up to be worshiped in his stead a 
goddess of Liberty and Reason. The scene of 
this unparalleled mockery was the Church of Notre 
Dame. An opera-girl served for a goddess to re- 
ceive the worship. Howitt says "it was a genuine 
theatrical scene, burlesquing scandalously the rites 
of religion." To the true worshiper walls are not 
sacred things, and nothing holy can ever be ac- 
tually profaned ; but the Church of France has 
taught a different doctrine, and in reading the 
record of this crazy jubilee one feels a vague kind 
of disbelief that these men could so soon have 
outgrown every vestige of respect for a place whose 
very threshold they had once considered holy. 
True, they had burned the Pope in effigy, but the 
Pope had withstood them. It would seem that 
God himself must have chosen to utterly desecrate 
those silent incense-saturated walls, so stained by a 
polluted worship ; and the purple and fine linen 
with which for ages men had veiled the eyes of 
men, and covered out of sight the ark of His holy 
covenant, were now thrown out to become the 
filthy rags of the Revolution. They altered the 
computation of time, and dated not from the birth 
of our Saviour, but from the 22nd of September, 
1792, the birthday of French liberty. After chang- 
ing the names of the months, they divided them 



j^o Poetjy and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



into periods of ten days, instead of weeks — less kind 
to themselves and each other than God had been, 
they robbed man and beast of one day of rest in 
every month ; and every decade they met to worship 
Liberty and Reason, professing to rise above every 
form of ignorance, injustice and fanaticism, to be- 
come a loving brotherhood, with their republic for 
their religion. But the guillotine was their altar, and 
their religion was blood. 

A deputation from St. Denis, with a cart-load of 
images and vessels of the sacrament, which were 
gathered from all the churches, to be destroyed or 
melted into coin, is said to have apostrophized them 
thus: "O you instruments of fanaticism and 
blessed saints of all kinds, serve your country by 
going to the mint to be melted, and thus give us 
in this world the felicity you promised us in the 
next !" 

Had these reforms been only directed against some 
of the perverted forms of religion, the nation at 
large must have felt some unfortunate effects of this 
loud and reckless iconoclasm ; but directed, as they 
believed, against the very throne and existence of 
God, it assumed a form and shape of such awful 
magnitude that it has overshadowed France till now. 

While they were drenching their land with blood, 
this nation of maniacs seem to have had but one 
other desire — to wipe out, if possible, the very idea 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j^i 



of God and a hereafter. For this purpose Fauche 
and Chaumette carried the work into the cemeteries, 
and destroyed or obhterated every emblem or in- 
scription presenting the idea of God or immortahty, 
and placed over the gates the words, ' ' Death is eter- 
nal sleep." If it were ever permitted us to pray for 
the dead, human charity would constrain us to pray 
that they might have found it so — 

" For e'en the dread power of dissolving in space 
Would be bliss to such souls." 

It is impossible for these men to take shelter in 
the heathen's refuge. Mercy spreads no shadowy 
wings of ignorance over the crimes of their lives 
which prepared the horrors of their death. They 
stood amid the "nations that forget God," and de- 
fiantly working out for themselves the companion 
character, they invoked the fate of both. The 
bloody and impious abominations of the " Reign of 
Terror" were not committed, or, at least, not di- 
rected, by an uneducated mob, but by men who were 
the lights of France, the friends of Talleyrand, Mira- 
beau and Paine, the latter of whom was all this time 
sitting quietly in prison writing his ** Age of 
Reason," perhaps an unconscious rival of the arch- 
fiend who outside his prison walls was writing down 
/lis age of reason in bloody columns in the book of 
time. It is difficult to believe that less than a cen- 
tury ago, with every human reason for a guide, men 



j^2 Poetry and Pilose of Marie R. Butler. 



could have transformed civilized France into this 
fiendish chaos of confusion, carnage and terror, de- 
stroying alike the Republic and its foes, and even 
forcing each other under the uplifted ax of doom. 
When we think of Paris weltering in blood, of 
Nantes breeding pestilence from the stench of its vic- 
tims, of the Loire bridged with its floating corpses, 
we sink down in helpless agony and shame, and lay 
our human reason at the feet of God, imploring him 
to save us from ourselves. We read of the butcheries 
of India, and the cold-blooded sacrifices of the Hin- 
doos, and thank God that we live in a civilized land, 
and have heard the name of Christ ; and yet in 
France, where the sacred symbols of the body and 
blood have told the story of the cross for centuries, 
we find the most cultivated minds planning and exe 
cuting atrocities on a scale that finds no parallel 
among the South Sea Islanders or the brutal tribes 
of Central Africa. And all this in the name of human 
liberty and reason. Human Liberty ! a virago with 
her cap dyed red in the purest blood of France, 
instead of a white-robed angel on the walls of Zion. 
Human Reason ! a drunken despot enthroned upon 
a guillotine, instead of a Paul on Mars' hill. 

If, in the wise economy of God, this sanguinary 
chapter serves any purpose, it must be to show to the 
world, for all time to come, how unutterably low 
they fall who make a god of Reason. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. jjj 



Nor was the carnage of this frenzied Age of 
Reason the sum of its crime ; that was only the out- 
ward and visible sign, written in blood, of that abom- 
ination of desolation which swept away a polluted 
religion and a prostituted Church, and put in their 
place the flowers of Mirabeau and the logic of Paine, 
while in and out among them glided that old serpent 
whose sting is death. 

And if the blood of the Revolution rose above the 
high-water mark of human fury, it was not so much 
the intention of its leaders ; still less the crime of a 
brutal mob resisting tyranny ; it was rather the legit- 
imate result of a corrupt Church on one hand, and, 
on the other, the teachings of men who had long de- 
throned God In their hearts, and now sought to lay 
profane and violent hands upon His earthly scepter. 

Liberty and Reason were enthroned, but insanity 
and terror reigned, and this wild flood of human dis- 
aster drowned alike the bodies and souls of men, 
sweeping away the bulwarks of religion and the land- 
marks of law. 

And now high over this chaos sat the great Robes- 
pierre, great even in his littleness. The thunders of 
Danton were silenced, and Robespierre, enthroned in 
terror, sat alone — triumphant, calm, satisfied ? Tri- 
umphant, certainly ; but neither calm nor satisfied. 
It would seem that in the blackest human heart 
God never leaves himself without a witness ; and 



jj"-^ Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



so this human fiend, who more than all others had 
trampled humanity and outraged Divinity, was made 
the vindicator of that God to whom his whole life 
was an insult. He had conquered all opposition ; 
his delicate white hands were the levers of the Re- 
public ; his word was the ax of the guillotine ; 
but above and before him frowned the shadow of 
death. He could not destroy that. It did not 
oppose him; it only waited for him. Why did it 
wait? His compatriots had said death was an 
eternal sleep — had he not sent them, by hundreds, 
to prove it? Yet he had not affirmed it — if it 
were that, he was not ready to fall into its arms. 
Why did it wait ? Was he not master of France ? 
And so Robespierre, the most pitiful coward of the 
Revolution, at last dared the loud wrath of this 
insane reign of Reason, rather than the silent curse 
of God dethroned. Cautiously, at first, in the Ja- 
cobin club, he asserted, in view of the ungoverna- 
ble excesses of the people, that ' ' if there were no 
God, a wise legislature would invent one " to re- 
strain them. Finding this speech well received by 
a majority, he next denounced the extreme atheists, 
and finally appeared before the Convention with a 
carefully prepared paper, deifying Liberty, Virtue 
and Reason, and echoing all the putrid sentiment 
of the Republic ; and then, having sacrificed unto 
the gods of Canaan, he proceeded to argue the ne- 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. J55 



cessity for a belief in a Supreme Being, not as an 
undeniable truth, but as a theorem tending to the 
solution of their political problem, which was already 
beginning to startle even their callous hearts by its 
vast proportions and the awful momentum of its un- 
manageable elements. He asserted nothing, but en- 
deavored to prove the advantage to be gained by 
assuming the existence of Deity. ''The belief," 
concluded Robespierre, *'in a Supreme Being, and 
the immortality of the soul, is a perpetual recall to 
justice; it is, therefore, social and republican." 

Had he exorcised the shadow, or did it still wait ? 
And now the noble senators, who in the cathedral of 
Notre Dame dethroned the Almighty amid the accla- 
mations of the people, received this speech with the 
same demonstrations, and the people voted addresses 
to the Convention, thanking them for the restoration 
of the Supreme Being. 

It would seem that such impiety must appear al- 
most too weak to be wicked in the estimation of 
Him who is ' ' the same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever." But this was the wisdom of France; and, as 
Robespierre said the people needed festivals, they de- 
cided that every decade throughout the year should 
be a festival in honor of something — the human race, 
patriotism, liberty, virtue, agriculture, and a long 
list of abstractions ; but the first was dedicated to 
the Supreme Being, as though he, too, were but an 



J ^6 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



abstraction. "It hardly appeared," says the histo- 
rian, ' ' a restoration at all, but the erection of a pan- 
theon of worshipable things, with the Supreme Being 
at the head of them." 

The first festival, that of their reinstated Deity, 
was appointed for the 8th of June, or the 20th of 
Prairial, according to the new computation. Great 
preparations were made, and again blood-stained, 
woe-begone Paris forgot its aceldama for a few brief 
hours, to thrill with a new sensation. 

In the garden of the Tuileries a large mound was 
raised for the festival, and graced with three statues, 
Atheism, Deism, and a veiled statue of Wisdom. 
But the mound, erected in haste, proved too small 
to afford standing-room for the Convention, and the 
rites began amid much elbowing and cursing among 
that noble body. 

As high-priest of the Supreme Being, stood Robes- 
pierre, with torch in hand, awaiting the moment of 
the unveiling of the statue of Wisdom to set fire to 
the statues of Atheism and Deism. Here, standing 
upon the mound above the heads of Paris, just as he 
towered over France, we take our last look at Robes- 
pierre the Great : the shadow is closing round him ; 
henceforth, vain, weak, cowardly, and unutterably 
wicked, he crawls through another page of history, 
and then — drops from the guillotine into the bottom- 
less pit of eternal infamy. But at this moment he 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j^y 



stood in his sky-blue waistcoat, carrying an immense 
bouquet of flowers and wheat, the central object of 
the eyes of Paris, and half-insane with vanity and 
the sense of power, perhaps unconscious, or, for 
one brief moment, unmindful, of the mutterings of 
hate around him. His arm was raised, that arm po- 
tent enough to crush the liberty of France, and, in 
the words of the terrible St. Just, "send the vessel 
of the revolution plowing its way through a red sea 
of blood," and yet, afterward, too weak to let out 
his own life, when, in the brutal sense of an awful 
fear, he would have escaped from the horrors before 
him into the arms of that haunting shadow that fol- 
lowed him to the end. 

At the appointed moment Wisdom was unveiled 
and the statues fired, and once more in Paris reigned 
a Supreme Being, whose restorer and high-priest was 
Robespierre. "But, unfortunately," says the histo- 
rian, "the smoke from the burning of the two images 
so blackened Wisdom that she looked more like a 
demon than a divine creature, and the whole ap- 
peared more like a burlesque on the Deity than a 
festival in his honor." 

O God of wisdom ! in that smoke-grimed statue 
we see not Thee, but the Spirit of France, blackened 
by the smoke of Atheism, till all its divinity was hid, 
lost beyond redemption ; and it stood like that statue, 
a reproach to the hand that raised it. 



j^8 Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



But now, in that wild ecstasy which marks every 
event of this insane period, the members of the Con- 
vention embrace and kiss each other, and the hoarse 
muhitude roar and shout as they did at Notre Dame, 
Then in procession the assemblage wend their way to 
the Convention, where the leader of the section of 
Marat appeared at the bar and addressed them (in 
complimentary reference to the Republican party 
called in the Convention the "Mountain"), begin- 
ning: " O Beneficent Mountain ! O Protecting Sinai I 
accept our expressions of gratitude for all the sub- 
lime decrees which thou art daily issuing for the hap- 
piness of mankind." They do indeed recall Sinai, 
not the lawgiver or the law from its summit, but the 
golden calf, the idol at its base, inaugurated in this 
a more sinful age by the bloody dance of death. 

And here we leave them, bloody infidels congratu- 
lating their peers on the restoration of a Deity ! And 
the tragedy goes on. It is a record for demons — for 
demons laugh ; and surely never, in the world's his- 
tory, were the absurd and ridiculous so inextricably 
mixed with horror and infamy. 

We close the page. The lesson is over ; the ser- 
mon is ended — that sermon preached by human 
events on the text of Divine inspiration, "The 
world by wisdom knew not God. " The logic of facts 
is conclusive. The argument is unanswerable, and 
we turn from the contemplation of this reign of Rea- 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j^g 



son with a most tender reverence for the boundless 
patience and immeasurable love of Him who, in 
passive strength and silent majesty, still "stretched 
out His hand when no man regarded." 

If all the writings of French infidels in the eight- 
eenth century were bound together, they must be 
harmless, if only the simple facts of this bloody, 
grotesque and inconsistent *' Age of Reason " were ad- 
ded as a second volume. In this the theory was 
tested, and there was obviously nothing extrinsic to 
prevent the most perfect realization of its Utopia. 
Human wisdom sought and found an utter social, po- 
litical and religious vacuum, and filled it as it would. 
But instead of liberty, justice, virtue, equality and 
peace, there ensued the worst tyranny the world ever 
saw : men saturated with sentiment preyed upon each 
other with the appetite of cannibals, and the smoke 
of the abomination rose to heaven in a dense cloud 
of human agony and sin, which dropped blood, blood, 
BLOOD, until the air grew thick with horror, and we 
turn shuddering away, to wonder if indeed there is 
any earthly limit to Divine love and patience. 

But the God of Sinai is terrible as well as great. 
The world has not known Him, and he who would 
measure His attributes or limit His power must dare 
the thunders of Sinai ; and he who would have hu- 
man reason sit in the seat of Moses to legislate in 
his name, would break the balance-wheel of human 



j6o Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 



society, and open the flood-gates of hell to inundate 
the world. And the God of Calvary is great, but 
the world by wisdom has not known Him, Through- 
out the Old World men have groped their way 
through centuries to find Him, and only been an- 
swered by the hollow echoes of Rome. Though in 
and out like a golden thread for eighteen hundred 
years we may trace the true succession, yet the 
world looked on, and never knew their prophets till 
the hour was past ; and temples have grown hoary 
over worshipers that returned to dust and never 
knew Him. And the new world, born of the best 
inspiration of the old, and carried forward on the 
tidal wave of the grandest civilization — can it be that 
it is even now forgetting the Source of its power ? 

From the Atlantic to the Pacific we have carried 
the wisdom of the knowledge of God, and yet how 
powerless it is in our hands. From the negative 
morality of Chinese idolaters we might learn lessons 
of consistent practice and patient fidelity to that 
Power which alone can make us the light-house of 
the world. 

But if from our schools and colleges we remove 
the Bible and devise other corner-stones, and in our 
practice forget God, we shall but invoke another 
Reign of Reason, with perhaps its deluge of blood, or 
else go down like a ship in sight of land when all the 
waves are still. 



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. j6i 



The church only can interpose and teach the na- 
tions, by a Hving faith, that ' ' Christ with us the hope 
of glory " is no poetic abstraction, but a changeless 
living Power that walks beside us day by day. 

What care we for the wordy wisdom of the Brit- 
ish House of Lords, or the Ecumenical Council of 
Rome ? For Christ is here ; a little child has found 
him, not in the council of nations or the wisdom of 
senates, but in the sweet old story of the Babe of 
Bethlehem, the Wanderer of Galilee, the Jesus of 
Mount Olivet, the Prisoner of Pilate, and the Christ 
of Calvary. This is the Healer of many nations, 
the perfect Giver of a changeless law — "The Christ 
of Calvary, our Prophet, Priest and King." 

Lead us. Father, by Thy counsel. The night of 
the world is past. The morning has come. The 
ages have waited, and now the old world turns over 
from its slumber to face the rising sun. But it is 
weak and shines afar off, and still the abject children 
of men sit under the high altars of bigotry and 
power, and hear Presumption "teaching for doc- 
trine the commandments of men." And still the 
nations sway to and fro, and make of the whole earth 
a Calvary, and "crucify the Lord again" between 
Mitred Tyranny and a defiant "Age of Reason." 



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